Synchronicity
by krycalex
Summary: The aftermath of the Auburn explosion. Old story is old, but leave a review and I'll consider writing another one.
1. Insurgency

Interval 1 – Insurgency

His room back home was completely bare, with the exception of a bed and a sink. A bare bulb, sunken in the ceiling, high out of reach behind steel meshing, had been his only lighting, although sometimes a rare ray of sunshine managed to find its way onto the walls through tiny, dirty windows near the ceiling. At those times, he stood on his bed when no one looked, hands curled on the sill, too far below to see the outside world, but close enough to feel the presence of sunshine on his pale face. It had been like that for as far back as he could remember.

But today… today was different. Even before he opened his eyes, he could feel that something was different. The bed he was lying on was different. The sheets covering him were different. Sunlight was warm on his face. Impossible. He opened his eyes suddenly and, unaccustomed to the bright light, tried not to blink.

Where was he? Furiously, he ripped the IV from his arm and the oxygen from his face. He sat bolt upright and looked around. His bed was in a large room bathed in bright sunlight, with large windows for a wall. Beside his bed rested two folding chairs. There was an unoccupied bed parallel to his; between them were two nightstands. He saw a book on the nightstand next to the other bed - it was Shakespeare. Slipping out of the bed sheets, he put his bare feet on the cool, tiled floor and walked around the room.

His clothes were gone. In their place, a thin, blue, gown-like implement, short-sleeved and backless, fluttered with his every moment, creating an illusion of modesty.

He made his way gingerly to the windows. Finally, he could see the sun shining and he felt relieved. At last, the nightmare was over. That night's hell was over. No more would he need to turn in trepidation at the slightest sound and find the horrifying images waiting for him in his mind. He was safe. Safe from her. Gunfights and Replica Soldiers, blood and pain, all this he could handle. There was only one thing, one person who could make him feel fear.

"Fratricide… matricide…" a voice suddenly admonished in a whisper. He felt a shiver run down his spine and he turned around slowly. Within a second, he remembered the helicopter lift out of the ruins of Auburn. He wasn't safe yet. She was still out there.

That's when something caught his eye. The door was open. They never left him sleeping in a room with the door open. Something was wrong. He crept to the door, pulled it open and peered out, looking to the left, then to the right. Two interminable lengths of sterile white corridor stretched away on either side. He glanced to the right again, and his breath caught in his throat.

A little girl, an emaciated figure whose face was hidden beneath a tangled veil of long black hair, stood, unmoving, at the end of the corridor. The beams of sunlight that escaped the curtains shrouding the windows beside her never touched the dirty crimson of her dress.

He moved beyond the doorway, walking toward the ghostly figure that never moved to escape or intercept her son. A few steps away from her, he broke into a run. She vanished as soon as he got close enough to touch her clammy hands, bursting into a million putrid shards of charred flesh. He crashed headlong into the wall as the last bits of Alma melted into the air.

Immediately, he was up again, but she was gone. He heard her sobbing quietly, and followed it left around a bend in the corridor. Every room he looked in was empty, although they were all furnished in the same manner as the one he had awoken in. He continued along the corridor and soon found himself in an open area.

The outer end of the room, a protrusion from the general geometry of the building, was encircled on all three sides by large windows and a nice view of city edifices beyond it. Many plastic chairs were aligned toward two televisions hanging from the ceiling on either side of the opposite wall. On the other side, between two elevator doors, two beings were sitting behind a counter. There was a protruding logo on the auburn wall, but he didn't bother to read it, because as he approached, he quickly realized that the two beings weren't humans.

They were Alma's meat puppets, putrid reanimated corpses of rotting flesh with glowing yellow eyes as the only indications of the existence of life within them. A bubbling rage filled him. Had they brought him here to continue to suffer this mental torture? Hadn't he suffered enough? He ran over to the counter and leaped over it. The two rotting corpses noticed him at this point, and were backing up on their swiveling computer chairs to avoid him.

He gave the nearest meat puppet a solid punch in the face and pushed both to the ground. Angrily, he kicked it in the midsection once, twice, three times. It disintegrated in a burst of intangible blue fluids. The other meat puppet was getting up from the carpeting and was fleeing, while making screaming noises. He caught up with it as it attempted to call an elevator to the floor and crushed it against the door.

"What do you want?" the meat puppet screamed, clutching at his arm. He turned it around and broke its neck. Screaming began to fill the room, a pulsing cry of despair and fear. One more meat puppet appeared at the opening of the corridor and he pinned it down before killing it quickly. He pushed away from the limp corpse. His anger was dissipating – he was eager to escape from this place, and return to F.E.A.R. HQ.

He searched the floor until he found a knife, killing another four meat puppets with ease, then he returned to the large waiting area, called an elevator and took it to the ground floor. He watched the door open and drew in his breath sharply as he saw that he had emerged into another large region teeming with meat puppets. Some of them were sitting down. Others were walking around busily. A group had surrounded the elevator and cried out in horror as they saw him walk out.

As they saw him, the crowd began to mill about excitedly and run in all directions to escape him. But four weren't fleeing like the others. They approached the elevator with practiced calmness, drawing their hands back as though to strike.

He hit the first one so quickly it was still moving as it was blown backwards by the blow, innards flying like banners in its wake. He stabbed the second through what remained of the cheek. The other two hesitated for a second and he came at them. He caught the third in the throat, kicking the fourth to the ground. As he struggled to free the knife, the fourth meat puppet tried to escape. At last the knife came out of the throat with a squelch, and he let the dying reanimated corpse drop to the floor.

He got to the last meat puppet as it tried to escape through the front door, but he tripped and it got away. He pushed through the door, and emerged into the sunlight outside. Momentarily blinded, he closed his eyes and swayed dizzily.

"Freeze!" a voice shouted. "Don't move!"

"Drop your weapon!" another yelled.

"On the ground, now!"

He opened his eyes hurriedly. Men – one and a half dozen, maybe more, dark uniforms, huddled around six cars, pointing their guns at him. He froze. They weren't Replica Soldiers. They hadn't seen the meat puppet. They were aiming at him. He was terribly confused – what was going on?

"Drop your weapon!"

He looked down at the knife and stared at his crimson hands. He stared at himself: he was covered in blood.

"Drop your weapon now!"

They outnumbered him and they all had guns. Glancing around, he saw several people huddled around an injured security guard sitting on the ground.

"Drop it now, or we'll open fire!"

One of the people looked up. He recognized her immediately. The young Asian woman stared back at him with wide, frantic eyes.

"Jin!" he cried, panicked.

"Wait!" she screamed, holding her hand out to stop the guns from firing.

As he prepared to call back to her, he was shot in the leg. He staggered from the sharp pain in his thigh, dropping the knife on the ground. He pressed a hand to the wound. Instead of feeling warm blood, his fingers brushed the feathery end of a tranquilizing dart.

His eyes were wide for a moment. He shook his head vigorously before collapsing onto one knee. Jin Sun-Kwon ran up to him, shouting to the police officers not to shoot him. She grabbed his shoulders and eased him onto his back on the ground.

"Don't fight it," she murmured quietly, stroking his short hair. She watched as his face relaxed and his eyes unfocused and closed slowly.

The Commissioner walked up alongside her, holding his tranquilizer gun limply in one hand.

"Thank you, Rowdy," Jin said, looking up.

One of the officers approached, carefully examining the F.E.A.R. point man. "All clear!" he yelled to the others.

"What are we going to do now?" Rowdy Betters sighed.


	2. Mea culpa

Interval 2 – Mea Culpa

She needed to make the call – that much, she knew for sure.

She must have taken a thousand paces in front of that phone. She must have hesitated a hundred times, her soft fingers brushing the receiver. She must have been in that room for a million years.

She had to do it. If she didn't, only God knew what would happen. She quickly walked to the phone, half hidden in the shadow on the kitchen counter. She wavered only a moment before extending her arm.

The phone rang. Startled, she picked up quickly.

"Who is it?" she breathed.

"Aristide, you fucking liar," a male voice said in a low tone.

"Is your end of the line secure?" she said, recovering.

"Goddamnit, Aristide! Don't give me that shit. You have a lot of explaining to do."

"I…" she hesitated. "I'm not exactly sure what you're talking about, Senator."

"Are you watching the news?"

She glanced nervously across the counter at the living room, where her television was on. A reporter was standing in a parking lot near a white building, chattering away excitedly. The volume was down to ten percent.

"No, I'm not," she lied.

"Can you guess where your precious first prototype is right now?"

"No," she said.

"He's not in his hospital room, I can tell you that."

"Wh… what?" Her heart beating in her throat, she tried to sound surprised.

"Don't pretend you don't know. (a pause) He just butchered half the hospital staff and was caught by the police. They're probably questioning him right now."

"My God."

"I told you to stop giving me that shit, Aristide! You know as much as I do in this matter. When you said that we could 'resolve' the Auburn situation quietly, I trusted you with the matter. I should've known better. The Auburn explosion was one thing, but things are really getting out of control. The public knows everything."

A pause followed. She brushed her hair out of the way with one hand and tried to steady her breathing, hoping that the Senator couldn't hear her.

"I'm… going to start working on rectifying the situation right away," she said finally.

"Good," the man said, sighing breathily into the phone like a gale. "You know, Aristide, You got this position for one reason, and one reason only, and you could lose it just as easily as you got it. You got one chance, one chance to make things right. Don't blow it."

He hung up.


	3. Delirium

Interval 3 – Delirium

The implacable glow beating the outside of his eyelids was also warming his body. He could feel a soft touch around his ankles and the wind ruffling his hair.

"Quentin! Quentin!"

He opened his eyes to look around for the source of the sound. He was standing in the tall grass of a meadow peppered with dandelions. The sky was a brilliant blue, with no clouds in sight. Atop a hill nearby, a woman knelt on a square of bright checkered cloth, fiddling with a bag.

"Quentin!"

He glanced to his left. A little boy, dark haired and fair skinned, was running toward him, arm outstretched.

"Look! Look what I found." The boy, his green eyes sparkling with excitement, pointed down toward his open hand, where something glimmered. Looking down, he saw that it was a small stone. He took it, turning the smooth quartz slowly in the sunlight.

"Do you think it's a diamond?"

A shadow fell over the rock. The young woman had approached, holding a plate of cookies. He looked up at her. She was smiling tenderly as she offered the plate to him.

"Have a cookie, Quentin," she said. He took one, but he didn't even have the chance to taste it. In one mighty swish of black hair the woman was crouching in front of them, and held both boys gently in her arms. She smelled of wild flowers.

"I love you two," her voice said quietly beside his ear. "I won't ever let anyone hurt you. I'd die before I let that happen." He closed his eyes, and lurched forward unexpectedly. She was gone.

He opened his eyes to a pounding headache. The meadow was gone. The lighting in the room where he was now was nothing compared to the sun – here was a lamp hanging from the ceiling whose light seemed to pulse in time with his migraine. A tall, dark-eyed man, who wore a suit and tie, was watching him cautiously from the shadows shrouding the other end of the long conference table.

He looked down at himself. He was wearing a faded orange jumpsuit and was sitting in a chair, his arms twisted behind him in an awkward position. He shifted uncomfortably in a quiet metallic rustle, finding that that he had little or no room to maneuver. The man sitting opposite him leaned across the table and squinted, studying his captive's face.

"Ready to talk?" the man said.

"Where am I?" he asked drowsily.

"What's your name?" the man asked, and when his guest didn't answer, he leaned closer and stared silently.

"Alright, Ed," the man said quietly, sighing. "It doesn't matter. You killed eleven people today. Your life –" he slapped the table "– is over."

The man's voice was loud enough, but he couldn't listen to it. He couldn't focus. His head throbbed as though it was a ticking time bomb, just waiting to explode and take his consciousness with it. The light was blinding in such perfect darkness. He decided to close his eyes, if only for a moment.

Jin Sun-Kwon of the F.E.A.R. team glanced through the one-way glass as she passed the window with Commissioner Rowdy Betters. The Point man was fully conscious, though as he was sitting with his hands cuffed through the metal bars of a chair at the table, he couldn't look any more dead than he currently did. Leaning under the low-hanging lamp, a man stood close to him, gesticulating as he talked.

Betters opened a door and lead the way into the room. Jin followed. The first thing she noticed was that the Point man appeared to be asleep, though his eyes were half-open. He moved groggily when the detective shook him by the shoulder. Betters rapped on the doorframe and cleared his throat to make their presence known to the detective, who glanced up sharply.

"Who're you?" he asked, surprised. "Who let you in here?"

"We're here to take him back with us," Jin said.

"Wait a minute," the detective said, frowning. "Your friend here got caught red handed murdering eleven innocent people, volunteer staff at AMH, and you're talking about having him released from custody at this time? First, tell me who let you in here without permission."

"We were just wondering where we could speak to the Captain here," Betters intervened.

The detective crossed his arms across his chest. "That would be me."

"All right, could we have a few words with you; somewhere we can talk in private, Captain?" Betters said.

The Captain trudged out into the hallway and stood waiting for them to follow. Jin caught the detainee's eye long enough to mouth a quick "it'll be alright" before she exited the room with Betters.

"Let's talk in my office," the Captain said, closing the door.

Still sitting in his chair, surrounded by silence, the Point man closed his eyes and let his head drop.

In the space of an instant he was back in that long corridor again, walking to the door at its end, staring at the keypad lock around the handle. The small window in the door was entirely covered in steel meshing, but he could see who was inside. He could feel the cold weight of the gun in his hand.

The door opened without any resistance. Inside that eerily blue room, a motionless man knelt on the tiles. Only when the door shut did he look up, and the man known only as the F.E.A.R. Point man recognized him immediately.

His arm rose inexorably, a reflex born of his training and his frustration. The man kneeling before him didn't make a move. He didn't try to escape – he just stared at his would-be-killer with his green, unblinking eyes. And he opened his mouth.

"I'm your brother," he said.

The gun's muzzle leveled with the man's face.

"No!" a little girl's voice cried.

The Point man felt a small hand on his arm as his finger contracted to pull the trigger. Paxton Fettel fell back, dead, with a small, round bullet hole between the eyes.

"Hey," Jin said.

The Point man opened his eyes.

"Are you alright?" Jin asked. "We're leaving."

Betters entered, followed by the Captain, looking as though he were filled with impotent fury but didn't dare show it. He walked up to the prisoner and undid his cuffs, and then he stared at him as he stood up.

"You're free to go," he said.

Betters touched Jin's shoulder and spoke a few words to her. "I'll stay here and wrap a few things up with the Captain. You two get a move on. I'll catch up with you later."

The two of them left the room once more. Jin took some clothes out of a duffel bag and handed them silently to the Point man.

"Here, put these on," she said, turning away. "And then, we'll get the hell out of here."

--------------------------------------

Author's Note: Several small points:

- I will explain why I call the Point man "Quentin" at the next interval.

- If you detect any problems (grammar, coherence, etc.) please tell me!

- AMH stands for Auburn Memorial Hospital.

- Also, there may be humongous changes brought to the entire fic, because I'm currently researching Auburn and the surrounding area.


	4. Post merediem

**Interval 4 – Post merediem**

The slate-gray sedan, sitting flanked by two squad cars, turned slowly out of the parking space and headed down to the road. Jin, sitting at the wheel, chanced a quick look at the Point man, riding shotgun beside her. He was looking out the window, in a trance-like state, his reflection in the window an unfamiliar face. She reflected that he looked strange in these civilian's clothes; with features unmasked, he looked good looking normal, though somehow a little vulnerable.

"How long has it been?" he asked, without turning. "Since… ATC?" The three simple letters that had caused all this trouble went tumbling out of his mouth.

"A week," Jin replied, sighing soundlessly. "It's been a week." She lapsed into silence, before she asked, "Do you remember anything?"

"I remember…" he began, and looked away, staring at the trees, the buildings, the cloudy sky.

"What?" Jin asked, making them lurch left onto another street. Three kids played hopscotch on the sidewalk. A teenage boy with his dog stopped walking when he saw their car and stared. Jin motioned for the Point man to open the glove box. As he withdrew a box of tissue paper, she handed him a bottle of water from the cup-holder. He wet the tissue and wiped the dried blood off his face.

"Alma. She's… alive," he said.

"That's impossible."

He leaned toward her. She could still smell the blood on him and kept her eyes on the road ahead. "I have to tell you something. That day, when we were being airlifted away from Auburn, I saw her."

As he spoke these words, Jin frowned. "What are you talking about? She's dead. We read the Origin reports. She…"

"She was climbing up into the helicopter with us." Jin's eyes widened as the green light of the intersection ahead of them turned red without having gone through yellow. The sedan halted in a squeal of brakes. Jin attempted to regain normal breathing.

"I…" Jin didn't want to tell him that she hadn't seen Alma in the helicopter with them. She frowned, trying to understand. "Do you mean when the helicopter bucked…?" She stopped, thinking about the implications. Of course, she didn't get an answer. He had returned to his contemplations of the outside world. Jin pushed against the accelerator. Unused to the strange silence, she reached for the car radio and turned it on.

"You're listening to TMS Auburn News – your news always comes first!" a male voice proclaimed. Jin glanced at the clock on the dashboard, which said three o'clock P.M.

"A massacre occurred in Auburn Memorial Hospital this morning," a woman said, her voice calm and objective, "when a comatose patient, unidentified at this time, awoke and murdered eleven of the hospital staff: nurses, doctors and security personnel. He apparently killed several with his bare hands and the others with a knife."

Jin sat quietly, wanting to turn the radio off. But her companion was listening with such a sharp intent she didn't dare back her thoughts up with actions.

"It was horrible," a woman sobbed, while other sounds attempted to drown out her voice. "He just ran at the nurse and broke her neck. She was screaming and begging, and he killed her. It just went on and on."

"Police surrounded the building a short while after the first murders," the reporter continued. "While leaving the hospital, the killer was taken down by an unknown man with a tranquilizer gun. He was taken into custody without any further incidents."

"This strange string of seemingly motiveless killings is the third strange occurrence in an interval of 5 days in the state of NY, the first of which happened Monday night, when an unidentified paramilitary force captured the ATC building in New York City. Fortunately, the building was back under control later in the evening, though all or most of the hostages were found dead.

"The incidents continued Tuesday morning. A large explosion occurred in a disused section of the industrial district of Auburn. Though no one was injured in the blast that originated from deep underground, this incident has left many deep impressions that won't be erased easily from citizens' memories."

"I woke up early in the morning," an agitated male voice said. "I didn't know what had woken me up, but I had the feeling it was something big. Sure enough, I started hearing sirens and stuff. I could see smoke in the distance. It was like the end of the world."

"Many also reported seeing a Black Hawk helicopter circling around the area of the blast. Though its origins are unknown, some believe it was being used to evacuate survivors. This theory remains highly speculative, as there weren't any people working in the area at the time of the –"

Jin sighed, turning off the radio. She looked at the Point man.

"I don't know what happened this morning," he said quietly. "I don't know what came over me. I don't know why I killed all those people."

Jin ignored his words. After a moment of silence, she said, "I'm tired of calling you F.E.A.R. Point man. I think it's time we called you by a real name."

"I…" He hesitated. "Quentin."

"Quentin it is," Jin said. She continued driving in silence. The road ahead of them was deserted on both lanes. Everyone in Auburn was either at work, at home, or in front of AMH. Quentin (henceforth we must call him thus) stared out his window, in noiseless contemplation of a beautiful, cold-looking stretch of water that reflected the gray clouds in the sky.

"What lake is this?" he asked.

"Owasco," Jin said, looking in the rearview mirror. "Don't look, but I think there's someone following us."

Quentin glanced into his side mirror. There was a large black vehicle tailing them a short distance behind. The windows were tinted so that the occupants were completely hidden from view. All he could see were the silhouettes of the people sitting in front.

"Maybe I'm wrong," Jin said with her voice so level it betrayed her nervousness, "but this car's been behind us since we left. I've got to do something; tell me if we're about to crash." Keeping one hand on the wheel, Jin leaned forward and began to feel around the car carpeting. Quentin watched the road with a statue-like concentration.

A sudden impact threw both occupants violently to the right; it was accompanied with a disconcerting crunching sound, the sound of metal sheets crushing and cracking inward under pressure. Quentin recovered first, glancing around sharply.

"Shit," Jin said, straightening up to take possession of the wheel with both hands.

The black car slammed into the gray sedan again, creating an even larger crashing sound as Jin cried out in pain. The sedan skittered to the side of the road and tumbled into the ditch lining it. The silence that followed was absolute.

Quentin moved groggily, unfastening his seat belt. He was aware of a thin trickle of blood on the right side of his face where his head smashed into the window. Jin wasn't moving.

"Ah… my ankle," she groaned. "I'm stuck." Quentin looked – the door had deformed and broken from the second impact and had somehow trapped her left leg. Perhaps she wasn't trapped at all; he couldn't be sure. In any case, she couldn't move. Her motions halting, like a crushed bug's, she reached down and picked an object up from the carpet.

"The gun…" Jin gasped, handing the pistol to Quentin. "Take it." She leaned back in a hiss of pain. "Shoot them if you have to. Forget about what happened this morning."

Quentin glanced around. In front of him, the lake; through the back windshield, he could see the road. The black car had stopped there. Jin groaned quietly beside him.

"They all deserve to die," Paxton whispered, as the four doors of the black car opened.

They stepped out of the car, their crisp uniforms creaking slightly with their every move. The buckles from the straps on their weapons made a dry clicking sound. The leader got out of the front passenger seat, stood with his feet apart and shouldered his shotgun, looking down at the vehicle in the ditch.

"We're moving in. Target appears to be down. Over and out," he said into his mike, before removing it from his ear. "It's time to play."


	5. Requiescat in pace

_I've got writer's block right now, so any suggestions and screams regarding plot, character behavior, illogicalities, etc. are extremely welcome! (And don't worry, I'll write in a violent firefight eventually…)  
_

**Interval 5 – Requiescat in pace**

He picked up at the second ring. As she listened, breathing filled the receiver, indications of accumulated stress that was reluctant to melt away.

"Senator," she said.

"Aristide?" the Senator breathed. "The prototype?"

"He was released from custody earlier. The vehicle transporting him and the Korean medic crashed near Owasco. They found themselves on the business end of a shotgun. Road rage, as you can see."

"Have you received confirmation of this?"

"Don't worry." A pause for effect, she thought. "He's extinct."

"What about the captain?"

"Accidentally drowned, while taking a swim."

"Excellent." The Senator sounded relieved. "You did good. Things will only get better from now on."

"There are still minor issues to clear up," she said. "The media, for example."

"That can be arranged," the Senator said stiffly. "For now, get some rest, Genevieve. Eat dinner, play with the kids… do… whatever it is that you do normally. We can talk more in the morning."

As she put the receiver back onto the phone cradle, Genevieve said quietly, "But you forget, Senator. I don't have any children."

-

No sound. Still no sound. The inside of the car was so quiet her ears were ringing softly. Some time before (a century, it seemed), the sounds of gunfire and shouting had ceased. The eerie silence of death hovered over the ditch.

After five minutes of forcing against the door trapping her leg, Jin felt the warm trickle of blood running down into her sock and leaned back against her seat to rest. She was still able to feel her toes – now that was a good sign.

A brilliant plan hit her full in the face, as plans usually did. She popped the glove box open and searched blindly until her fingers closed around the cool plastic handle of a screwdriver. Panting, Jin jabbed the tip against the seat with desperate effort. When it pierced the fabric, she ripped a large hole into the seat and dug the foam out with trembling fingers.

When at last her leg was loose, she found that she couldn't move it without incurring a great deal of pain. She gritted her teeth, lifted her leg clear of the seat and set it gently down on the car carpet. Jin couldn't make herself look at the spreading dark patch on her jeans. She let herself collapse over the hand brake and inched forward on her elbows.

The passenger door was pushed open with difficulty. It opened a crack before a gust of wind forced it against the frame again, and it bounced lightly. The door opened again. This time, the young Asian woman slipped out like a landed fish, and lay against the grass for a second before pulling herself up and leaning against the hood of the sedan.

"Quentin?" she called, but a sudden throb in her head made her voice catch in her throat, making the call too soft to be heard. She tried to peer over the hood, but the sun was in her eyes. She took a hop forward and her dangling leg throbbed with pain. She didn't even want to bend down and touch her ankle or her calf. She knew how bad they were.

Jin got as far as the trunk before a sudden jab of pain forced her to rest. When she looked up, panting, she saw him. Surrounded by several inert bodies, he was kneeling in the grass, head down, shoulders bobbing every time a sob shook his body.

"Quentin! Are you all right? Are you hurt?" She made a move toward him, lost her balance and pitched forward.

Frozen in place, propped up on her elbows, the front of her shirt streaked with dirt and blades of grass, Jin wanted to scream, but no sounds would come out of her mouth. The man looking over his shoulder wasn't Quentin, drowning in his tears in a sea of bodies, it was Paxton Fettel, a strip of skin hanging down his bloody chin.

"Jin," he said hoarsely. It wasn't Paxton's voice. Jin blinked. Come to think of it, the two brothers didn't look at all alike.

He got up to help her to her feet. As he moved away from the bodies, she saw the object of his ministrations: one of the attackers was missing his face.

"We… we have to get out of here," she said faintly, as he crouched in front of her to look at her leg. She was highly uncomfortable with having him so close, though he didn't seem to have noticed that anything was out of the order. She grabbed his shoulder when he tried to touch her leg. "It can wait. First, we have to leave."

Upon examination of the gray sedan, it was determined that its back tire had been punctured by a bullet. Jin hobbled toward the black SUV, climbing onto the passenger seat. She found the keys still plugged in the ignition and started the car.

Quentin arrived a minute later. He threw the guns onto the backseat, ran to open the passenger door and looked shocked when he saw Jin.

"Aren't you going to…?" he asked, looking away, but he cut off. "There's a car coming."

Jin stared at him with round eyes. Quentin slammed the door and ran to the driver side. When he slid into the driver's seat, Jin put her hand on the gearshift and moved it to D1. The SUV began to inch forward slowly.

"Just press your right foot on the smaller pedal," she said. "And don't press too hard. The other one is the brakes."

"Okay." Quentin nodded, sliding his fingers around the steering wheel.

The vehicle gave a sudden forward lurch and stopped with a squeal.

"Take it easy," Jin advised. "Ease up on the gas."

The SUV started moving forward again, running off the road for a moment before moving more normally away from the scene of carnage.

"Genevieve Aristide is after us," Quentin said.

-

"What the hell happened here?" the officer mused, rubbing the back of his neck. He closed his cell phone with a slight snapping sound.

The gray Nissan Sentra that lay in the crime tape-lined ditch was so badly damaged the door wouldn't open. The part of its left side that wasn't entirely caved in and deformed was riddled with bullet holes. Shining casings littered the ground. A few uniforms were moving around the vehicle, taking pictures or sampling the evidence. On the road, a line of body bags and an ambulance lay like a child's play set, abandoned before suppertime.

He walked away from the road and crouched down. On the grassless, soft soil near the road were tread marks belonging to an SUV. The road all around him was littered with splinters of headlight plastic and chips of black paint. He glanced back up, squinting in the receding red sunlight.

It was so strange, strange that this gunfight had happened here, out near Lake Owasco. None of the corpses had identification on them. It was as though they'd never existed, up until the moment they were shot. Their matching uniforms didn't make any sense. And there was no way to identify the bodies, except by DNA and fingerprinting. Hopefully, the DNA testing could reveal the perp's identity as well.

This was no wild animal attack.

There weren't any guns with which to match the casings and the holes. There were no witnesses, except the man who dialed them in the first place. He had passed by here and saw a black SUV leaving the scene. He couldn't remember the plate number.

The front passenger door of the Sentra, ajar, was pushed open further as a CSU emerged.

He opened his cell phone again, and dialed the number for the umpteenth time: still no answer, after 16 rings. Where was the captain? He knew very well what being on shift meant.

"Vincent," he called to the CSU. "Did you find something?"

"There's some blood on the passenger window," Vincent said, sealing up a swab. "I doubt it's from our victims – none of them exhibit wounds like that. Oh, and the driver's seat's ripped. There was a screwdriver. Hopefully we'll be able to lift some prints from it. Some blood there too."

"Do we know who the Sentra belongs to?"

"It's registered to a Rowdy Betters," Vincent said, suppressing a chuckle at the strange forename.

"Let's put out an alert for a black SUV. And let's find this Rowdy Betters," he said. "I'm sure he'll be itching to see this."

-

_If you detected any problems, please review to tell me so! And a big kiss/hug/beer to you for having read to the end! I know how much you hate those cops, they won't turn up again…;)  
_


	6. Unforeseen circumstances

**Interval 6 – Unforeseen circumstances**

Quentin couldn't breathe as he watched the light drain from Jin's eyes.

Her lips parted, stirring vainly when words did not come. One of her eyes was sealed shut from the hit a Replica soldier had scored with the butt of his rifle, but the other one was wide open, jerking about as it tried to focus on his face.

Quentin knelt down beside her. He saw the blood and felt his throat constrict, for each beat of her heart pushed the blood out of her body, where it gathered as a pool on the rough cement.

He tried to touch the huge shard of glass protruding from her chest. His fingers had barely made contact with the fragment when Jin cried out in pain, blood bubbling, dripping down her face.

He hadn't known this would happen.

The Replica soldiers had them cornered behind a large crate. He returned fire, even though he knew that defeat was inevitable. The enemy shouted to each other again, and he realized that the soldiers had advanced closer to their location. He groped for a fragmentation grenade on his belt, and it wasn't there. He looked at where Jin had been two seconds before.

Only when the enemy began shouting in fear did he realize what had happened. Seconds later, the deafening explosion shook the building, and silence fell after a shower of glass fragments.

"Jin…" he said, powerlessly trying to cradle her. She had made the ultimate sacrifice so that he could continue what he was meant to do. "You're gonna be okay." Quentin knelt above her. He got a good grip on the glass fragment, gritted his teeth and began to pull.

This was the only way he knew that could save her.

Jin struggled, crying out loudly, clamping her good hand around a fold of Quentin's jacket. The glass came free with a sickening squelch, splattering blood over them both. Quentin felt water cloud his vision and couldn't keep the tears from sliding down his face.

"Q… Q…"

Relief flooded him. "Jin!" he cried, but her body was lifeless, her eyes open but vacant, her mouth closed. He shook her, and she didn't make a sound.

Alma laughed ironically behind him. When Quentin turned to face her, she was wearing her flapping hospital gown and holding her younger son's hand as though she were his older sister. Quentin rose to a half-crouch, fingering his sidearm.

"Too bad about your girlfriend," Alma whispered, baring sharp teeth.

-

He awoke with a cry. Slumped next to him in the car, Jin gave a start and opened her eyes.

"What's the matter?" she asked.

Quentin's eyes scanned Jin's face. In the darkness, illuminated by a distant streetlamp, the young woman looked pale, slightly sickly perhaps, but otherwise breathing. Quentin leaned back against the seat, trying to calm his breathing.

"Are you alright?" Jin insisted, prompting Quentin to nod briefly, unsure of whether she could see him acquiesce.

"How's your leg?" Quentin tried to peer at Jin's ankle.

"I'll live."

Quentin nodded silently before looking around. Night had fallen over the city. Earlier, he had parked the commandeered vehicle at the end of a solitary stretch of gravelly parking lot, near a disused center where the city's electrical current's tension was converted. To one side of the complex, tall grasses stood as still as hairs on a frightened animal. Behind the structure, the converters themselves stood tall against the sky. Across the ill-maintained street, a soccer field catered to school children during the day.

Quentin wet his lips, opened his mouth and breathed deeply, preparing to tell Jin about his dream.

"Jin… I…"

He cut off when he saw the flood of light thrown across her window. Crunching gravel beneath its wheels, the car pulled up near their SUV and stopped, motor purring. Jin's eyes widened. She half-turned, scanning the blurrily lit window.

Instinctively, Quentin reached behind him, feeling the backseat for a gun. His fingers touched the coldness of a submachine gun. Pulling it to him, he checked the ammo and opened the door.

In a second, he was next to the other car, already pulling open the driver side door. He pointed the gun's nose at the driver and was met with a surprised shout, a voice he recognized immediately.

"What the hell?" Rowdy Betters exclaimed.

"Sir!" Quentin said in disbelief, as Betters batted the gun away.

"How did you –?"

"Later," Betters said, getting out of his car. "Where's Jin?"

"She's in the car." Quentin felt relieved that Betters was taking control of the situation. He heard the car door open.

"Rowdy? Is that you?" Jin called.

"Yeah, it's me," Betters said, running over to her, Quentin following. Jin tried to lever herself out of her seat, without much effect. Betters told her not to move and knelt to gingerly examine her ankle. When Jin gasped in pain, Betters looked up at Quentin.

"Let's get her inside."

Between the two of them, they helped Jin to the building. Betters unlocked a side door, which opened without much of an argument. The inside of the building was completely deserted, although the electricity still functioned.

"Someone paid the electrical bills," Betters commented as the lights flickered on. Jin was too tired to comment. She sat down in a rusty chair, while Betters busied himself verifying the condition of her injury.

Quentin paced nervously, examining his surroundings. Other than the odd shadow, the building was empty, with nothing but cobwebbed control panels on one wall, revealed under the bluish fluorescent lighting. A solitary unisex washroom was enterable through a door on the far wall. Quentin took this all in. He checked the gun again. Finally, he turned to Betters.

"Do you have my vitamins?" he asked.

"Yeah," Betters replied, digging in his pocket for the bottle. Quentin took it and walked away.

Betters' eyes followed Quentin into the washroom, and then returned to Jin's ankle.

"I think we'd better get you to a hospital," he said. "Your ankle looks pretty bad, not that you don't –"

"How did you find us?" Jin cut in.

The F.E.A.R. coordinator hesitated a moment before answering. "They'd put a chip in our friend's head. It's a transmitter of sorts, led me right to you two." Betters dug in his pocket again and extracted a small PDA-like object. He turned it on. Instantly a map of the city appeared and a dot flashed bright red, displaying their location.

Jin took it, examining it on all sides. "Who else knows about this?" she asked urgently.

-

The door shut behind him, Quentin felt his way blindly in the darkness. His bare fingers touched a cold wall, then a light switch. He flicked it on. Everything in this washroom was rusty, from the leaky tap to the moldy toilet bowl. Quentin fiddled with the tap to see if it worked properly. He turned the handle, spinning it uselessly a few times. Water leaked from the dragonhead in a fine dribble, though possibly enough for his purpose.

Quentin opened the pill bottle with difficulty, unused to the necessity for finger dexterity. He hastily tilted the bottle to let two orange tablets fall into his palm and swallowed them, feeling them catch in his throat.

Nearly gagging, he cupped his hands under the trickle of water and brought them up to drink. "There's something in the water." He remembered the words, whispered into his ear, a hollow caveat. Quentin shook his head, putting Bill Moody out of his mind. He drank the water. A lingering aftertaste swilled about in his mouth, but the pills disappeared down his gullet.

Quentin looked up and was startled to see the face staring back at him. He lashed his fist against the vision, cracking the mirror. His breathing grew shaky and erratic. He stared long and hard at the fragmented, bloodstained features in the mirror before finally convincing himself that it was indeed him. He ran a hand over his unfamiliar features. It was him, not Fettel. Never Fettel.

A gut-wrenching shudder went through the pipes that lined the wall. Water sprayed out from the tap with a growl, sickeningly yellow. Quentin pushed his sleeves up and ran his hands under the blisteringly cold water until his fingers went numb. He raised his hands up and splashed his face, washed away the blood, his brother's smile still imprinted on the inside of his eyelids.

-

Author's note: Please review this chapter and give feedback regarding plot, characters, etc. Also, I would like you to tell me what ending you think would be appropriate for this fic. Thank you.


	7. Caveat emptor

**Interval 7 – Caveat emptor**

"I'm so lonely…"

He pulled the thin blanket to him with his clammy fingers, tucked it firmly under his chin and shivered. High above, the dying light played with the flicking branches of the old willow tree, tossing fiery shadows across the ceiling. It almost looked as though flames were licking at the blue walls of his room, lapping at the bare, meshed light bulb that, within two minutes of the departure of light from the unattainable windows, would glow a steady, cold white. A sentinel against the night and its monsters.

He turned on his side, dragging his blanket and his body backwards until he felt the wall's biting cold seep through the blanket. He blinked his green eyes, gaze unwaveringly set on the closed door, a gaze that longed for company, for someone to watch over him as he lay there so he could close his eyes and sleep.

"Please… listen…"

He shut his eyes, clenched them tightly shut in a silent reply: no. He had been told not to listen to her voice. Mr. Patterson had sat down with him one afternoon, after supper, and told him none of it was real. He remembered Mr. Patterson's face, taught with fatigue, smiling a tired smile that didn't quite reach his eyes.

"It isn't real," Mr. Patterson had said, he remembered quite clearly. "She's not real."

Mr. Patterson wanted so much to believe his words had cured his young ward's fears that the boy almost pitied him. That was when the unsmiling man had approached, and Mr. Patterson had followed him to the door. As the boy sat with his feet dangling over the edge of his bed, he had heard them confer in a near-silence, eyeing him.

Then, he had had the impression. He saw hair, long and dark, the slender curve of a pale face, and eyes, the eyes that seemed wells of impenetrable darkness.

"So cold… so cold…"

Yes indeed, it was cold. A thin, seeping wind crawled through the gap left between the locked door and the threshold. He set his eyes on the grid-covered window, watching the shadows that played behind the glass.

-

She shivered. The corridor, already cold and desolate, clothed in shimmering blue scales, offered no resistance to the wind that whistled through a gaping window. It blew through her matted black hair, causing her to cross her arms across her abdomen, almost unconscious of her gesture. The technician tried to cover her with a blue blanket, but she shrugged away.

Standing next to her, the doctor's lips tightened and became a thin, discolored line.

"Remember, you are not to physically touch him in any way. You can talk to him, but keep it short. You've got five minutes. Have I made myself clear?"

Watching the distress emanating from Wade, she wanted to laugh in his face. How protective he was, of the same child that he wouldn't ever hold, except to deliver him to an inhumane life, the same life he had subjected her to. He had never cared about another living thing. He was obsessed with science; he had been destined to a life of advancing humanity's technological prowess. She contented herself with a wolfish grin, and a slow nod. Wade didn't press the matter.

He cleared his throat. "Open the door."

The technician bent over the keypad. He punched in a series of numbers that she was unable to commit to memory and a calm beep issued from the lock. The red diode went out, the small green diode came on, and the door was pulled open.

In that moment, nothing existed. Before her was her son, and that was all.

The next thing she knew, she was in front of him, holding the boy tenderly to her cold breast, laying dry, scaly fingers on his skin. He was beautiful, he was perfect… and he was freezing. Insensitive to her own discomfort, Alma tucked him away from the biting wind, protecting him from everything ugly and evil in the world.

"Baby… baby…" she murmured, tears of joy sliding down her gray face. "I'll never let you go. They can't take you away from me. You'll be alright, mommy's here. No one can hurt you."

"Guards!" She had barely heard Harlan's cry when two men bore down upon her.

The hand that lay itself on her arm was like the application of a red hot poker on her skin. Alma's mouth distended in a shriek, hardly enough to dissuade the men who quickly hauled her away from the bed. Wade and the technician emerged through the doorway and rushed to the boy to lead him outside.

Alma's eyes widened. "No! No! Not my baby! Give me back my baby! You bastards, let me go!"

When her cries fell on deaf ears, she thrashed about, twisting her spine unnaturally to sink her teeth into one of the guards' neck. The man cried out, letting go, and her left arm came loose. Her hand instantly snaked down to the guard's belt, where she loosed the gun from its holster. Cocking back the hammer before anyone could react, she fired point-blank three consecutive times at the other man, who fell back dead without having been able to muster a scream.

The wounded guard, lying on the floor, tried to use his radio to call for help. Alma caught sight of his movement and unloaded the magazine into his head.

"Hurry, let's go!"

Alma's hair whipped her face. As she turned, she caught sight of her son, being towed away down the corridor. With a cry, she skidded on the slick blood out into the hallway and aimed the pistol at the receding forms of the kidnappers, over the head of the boy, with both hands. Wade caught her eye and flinched. Alma's fingers tightened over the trigger. The hammer struck blindly like a snake in darkness and halted in its movement, producing a dry, clicking sound.

The young woman stood still and let her hand go limp, dropping the gun with a clatter. Her eyes clouded over and the wind, suddenly strong, whistled through the corridor. She concentrated her will on Wade, but it was the technician who tripped up and fell heavily to the floor. Without a moment of hesitation, Wade charged through the open doorway, dragging the boy behind him, and pushed the door shut with a hiss. The lock's diode shone red.

Her fists pounded the door; the lights flickered overhead; her throat shrieked his name over and over again. Wade glanced at her frostily through the meshed window, no longer holding the boy's hand. His eyes searched the room, his young charge's playroom, if it could be considered a playroom – it contained nothing more than a table and a few chairs. The only other exit, besides the elevator, was a door that led back into the main building. He couldn't risk getting stuck in the relatively unreliable elevator. Wade ran toward the door, while he called for reinforcements from security downstairs.

Alma looked down at the technician, who stared back at her with wide, frightened eyes.

"Alma… please, I'm sorry." He recoiled, expecting the worst.

Alma was confused for a moment; her eyes narrowed as she understood.

"How could you?" she shrieked. "How could you let him do this?" She was angry but she couldn't let this get in the way, so she roughly hauled him upright and shoved him toward the keypad.

"Open it!"

Alma burst into the room, but not before the elevator bell dinged. She hadn't seen the display's number changing from her vantage point in the hallway. She twisted, eyeing Wade with fury in her dark eyes. She tried to run, to reach her son, to eradicate Wade.

The doors opened and she wasn't ready for what happened next.

Instantly, three guards leapt forward and restrained her and a fourth man, clad in a white lab coat, seized her arm and drove a needle into her vein. Feeling the liquid being injected into her bloodstream, Alma responded by biting him while he bent over his hypodermic needle.

Alma spat out the blood and flesh, panting. The man staggered back, screaming, holding a hand to his bloodied face, but the deed was done. She struggled against the effects of the syringe, a thin trickle of bloody saliva dribbling down her chin into her clothes, an incoherent cry of impotent rage shaking her thin frame. The guards clung to her as drowning men to fragile stalks of grass on a riverbank, frozen between duty and apprehensive inaction.

As her eyes began to close, she was aware of her son's gaze on her. Then, she blacked out.

When Alma was taken out, unconscious, and the scientist led to a hospital, on the pretext of an animal bite, Harlan Wade risked a sigh. He watched Patterson get up from where he was cowering in a corner.

"That was hell," Wade remarked. "Remind me never to risk that again. Besides, I'm sure they were just empty threats. She would never hurt her own child." He paused, pensive. "Do you think the drug will affect the fetus?"

Patterson stared at him for a moment. Then, he shrugged, shaken, and walked away. Wade looked around him for a second, one eyebrow raised, then followed Patterson out of the room, saying, "Come on, I'll buy you coffee, how about that?"

During all this time, the boy sat in a nearby chair, a light spattering of blood on his face, watching the blood-stained floor with a detached, unblinking curiosity. Eventually, a smiling, young woman entered, administered an injection and wiped the blood off his cheek. She carried him to his room and laid him gently on his bed. The boy fell into a sound, dreamless sleep. Only then was the blood was cleaned away and the bodies removed from the building.

-

_Author's note: support and suggestions would be very much appreciated. If you didn't understand why Alma's mad against Patterson, I'll clear it up for you very soon._


	8. Decline

_Author's note: I know it isn't December yet, but I was tired of reading and rereading this. I hope this interval doesn't disappoint._

**Interval 8 – Decline**

The clinic's sterilized white façade was illuminated in the combined, disconcertingly bright glow of three spotlights. Quentin's muscles shivered and he moved uncomfortably. He turned his neck to watch the treatment center's glass door, his view half-obscured by the center post of the Acura.

Commissioner Rowdy Betters pushed the door open and stepped outside, striding over to the car. He pulled the door open and slid back into the driver's seat.

"What the hell happened?" were the first words to leave his mouth. When he received no response, he glanced at Quentin. "I leave you and Jin to go back to HQ and the next thing I know, I get called out to the middle of nowhere where my car's been totaled and there's a pile of bodies. Did I mention one of them was missing his face?"

Quentin was aware that his heart rate was rising perceptibly. He looked away.

A tense moment of silence passed. Betters sighed and chuckled, finding the situation unbearably funny and horrible at the same time. "I can tell you… that took a hell of an explanation, and quite a phone call. You can be thankful they weren't civilians."

"Sorry, sir."

Betters glanced up sharply. "Would you mind explaining to me what the hell happened out there, not to mention this morning?"

"Is…" Quentin hesitated, watching one of his clammy hands rub over the corresponding pant leg. "Is Jin going to be alright?"

The F.E.A.R. coordinator let out a sharp breath. "She'll be fine. Tweezer'll take good care of her." He ran a hand tiredly over his face. "This is crazy. I used to have… some idea of what was happening. I thought that it was all over, since Fettel was dead. Now…" he cut off, fruitlessly gathering his thoughts.

Quentin opened the door and lurched out, leaving the door open.

Confused, Betters reluctantly left the vehicle, walking around the car to where Quentin was breathing heavily, doubled over the adjacent parking spot.

"What?" Betters blurted.

"I'm not feeling well, sir," Quentin uttered and doubled over, retching, but nothing came.

"Jeez," Betters muttered. He looked around uncomfortably, then he asked, "You hungry?"

No reply. "When's the last time you ate?"

"I don't know," the answer came, weak.

Betters watched the F.E.A.R. point man. Closing his eyes, he took in the sharp night air and heaved a sigh. "Alright, get in the car."

-

He waited nervously at the patio door of her house, hoping that she had heard his message and knew of his arrival – he had called her from a payphone, but had only gotten her answering machine.

From his position on her patio, he could see her kitchen and the living room beyond it. None of the lights were on. He glanced up, for the second time in as many minutes. The lights were all off upstairs as well. The house was silent; the windows were dead eyes on the dark façade.

Another five minutes passed before the kitchen light suddenly turned on. He looked up, and there she was, arms akimbo, scrutinizing him. She unbolted the door and threw it open.

"Get in, and make it quick," she hissed, staring. He brushed past her and entered the warm confines of her home. The adrenaline that had accumulated at the prospect of spending a night outside began to dissipate.

"Man, I need a beer," he sighed, and walked toward the fridge.

She turned, crossed her arms. "What happened to the target?" He turned and glanced at her. It was late, but she wasn't wearing her bedclothes. Clad in a tweed jacket and sober pants, she surveyed him with the cautious curiosity and condescendence of a cat.

"Don't fucking mention that bastard," he said in a low, dangerous tone. He pulled the refrigerator door open and thrust his disheveled head inside, looking for his quarry.

Her breath caught. "What happened to the others?"

He slammed the door and cracked open the cold beer he was holding.

"He fucking killed them, that's what," he spat bitterly, tilting the can against his mouth. She saw the blood on his hands. Her eyes flicked to the fridge door handle, which bore a bloody handprint.

She walked to the glass patio door and drew the blinds shut. She then strode to the counter, opened a drawer and began feeling around in it.

As she worked, she asked, "Didn't you try to stop him?"

"It was crazy! They couldn't do anything to keep from being killed, so I ran for it! What the fuck did you want me to do?" He set the empty can on the kitchen table and glared at her back.

She slowly screwed the silencer on. "Come again?" she called, glancing over her shoulder.

"Didn't you hear me? He's a-live. He's a fucking maniac! What did you –"

Genevieve Aristide turned, holding the pistol straight in front of her in her right hand. Her finger squeezed the trigger twice, expertly firing at chest-level. He crumpled with a surprised expression on his face, halfway through the archway leading into the living room. A moan escaped his mouth. Genevieve stared down at him.

"Sorry, but you were a liability." She watched the spasms subside.

The phone rang. Genevieve gave a start at the sound. She quickly picked up and was greeted by a low growl,

"You fucked up, Aristide."

"Senator, hello," she said, trying to brighten her voice. She stared wistfully at the blood draining from the lifeless body as it crawled across the floor toward the Persian carpet in the living room. She longed to hang up, to clean up the mess, but she was frozen.

"Don't you hello me. You've made the biggest mistake of your life today."

"Senator, you've reached me at a really bad time. Call back tomorrow and I'll be able to answer any questions you might have." Genevieve unscrewed the silencer and quietly put it and the gun back into the drawer, after having pushed the hammer back into its safe position.

The voice on the other end of the line took on a sharp, threatening edge. "Maybe you could clear something up for me right now. Perhaps you'd care to explain to me why the police are leading a manhunt across the state, looking for a man who is supposed to be dead."

"A manhunt?"

"Your lackeys are dead, Aristide. They're investigating the shootout as we speak. Now, what about my answer?"

For the first time, she couldn't find an answer. Her mind raced against itself in an exhausting marathon, but couldn't form words to justify the obvious problem.

"That's it, Aristide," the Senator said, irritated. "You're fired."

He pressed a firm finger against the telephone's plunger and began dialing a number long imprinted in his mind.

-

Genevieve stared long and hard at the receiver in her hand. Finally, she dropped it and walked to her broom closet. She extracted several rags, a roll of paper towels and a bottle of bleach. She walked to the corpse and set to work.

-

Rowdy Betters pulled into the "drive-thru" lane, stopping at the panel to bark the order to the employee inside the building. He leaned back in the seat, blinking his sore eyes with a little difficulty.

At a crawl pace, he maneuvered the car in front of the window, stomped on the brake pedal and waited for the employee to appear. The window slid open with a grinding hesitation, and a young woman peered out into Betters' car.

"It's 8.95, please," she said, surprised that two men sat inside the vehicle.

Betters forked over the cash, while the woman, bemused, scanned Quentin's face. The woman turned away for a moment, shoving the bill into the drawer, grabbing a few coins and taking the paper bag from the counter. As she reached out to hand the bag and the change to Betters, she asked, "Would you like some ketchup with that?"

Betters grunted. He shot a rapid sideways glance at Quentin, and decided, wryly, that the Point Man had had his fill of ketchup for the night.

"We're good," he mumbled.

"Thank you; have a nice evening." She slid her window shut as Betters moved on, without having bothered reciprocating.

Betters drove silently, watching the darkened road ahead. Quentin felt strangely self-aware as he ate, but was glad the food in his mouth gave him an excuse not to talk. The commissioner glanced at him.

"Hey, buddy – shit!" Betters had barely opened his mouth to speak when something appeared in the glow of the headlights. The front bumper of the sedan ran right through it. The dark form flew back with the impact and crashed into the windshield, causing cracks to smash into existence on its surface, before vaulting over and behind the car.

The car stopped with a squeal, in the middle of the road. Both men sat staring at the bloodied and cracked windshield for a long moment. Then, Betters tugged the seatbelt buckle free and stumbled outside.

"Aw… great," Betters growled, surveying the damage. The impact had left the car smeared with blood and the cracked windshield looked like a frozen river thawing in the spring. Quentin followed Betters to the back of the car, where the man lay in a broken and tangled heap on the ground.

Betters groaned and reached into his pocket for his cell phone. Quentin crouched down beside the body and felt for a pulse. The man's face was turned to the ground and his skin was slick with blood. Quentin put a hand on the cadaver's shoulder and turned him over.

Then, he realized. The lingering aftertaste of the fries turned bitter in his mouth. The uniform. The familiar features.

"Hey, what're you doing?" Betters began, tilting the phone away from his mouth, then muttered under his breath, "What the hell?"

He stared down at the remains of the Replica soldier. At the same moment, Quentin glanced up from the body, somehow expecting, no, knowing that he would see the somber form of Paxton standing in the darkness, eyes vapid, the same sad smile hanging from his lips.

"I will show you," his half-smile seemed to say.

He stood up, keeping his eyes on those of his brother, as though afraid he would vanish, disintegrate into a cloud of blackened shreds, as he had a million times before. Completely ignoring Betters, he began walking towards the shadowy apparition. Then, his pace quickened, turned to a steady lope, then a flat-out run.

Frustrated but not wanting to give chase, Betters was left shouting uselessly as he disappeared into the darkness, "Hey! Hey! Stop! Aw, goddamn it!"


	9. Uterine kinship

I promised I'd explain the whole Patterson thing. So here's the scoop: Patterson's DNA (i.e. sperm) was used for Alma's in vitro fertilization(s). Yes, that is all.

**Interval 9 – Uterine kinship**

Paxton Fettel looked very much alive.

He stood at the end of the alley next to a grimy garbage bin, facing the rotten wood fence that seemed alive, crawling with shadows.

"'If you prick us do we not bleed? If you tickle us do we not laugh? If you poison us do we not die? And if you wrong us shall we not revenge?'" he recited dryly as Quentin approached. Then, he turned and seemed to notice his brother for the first time. Quentin kept his distance, still holding his fists in front of him, ready to strike.

"What's the matter?" Paxton asked.

Quentin eyed him warily. Fettel didn't vanish – on the contrary, he stood there as real as life itself, absently rubbing a hand through his short, filthy hair. He looked shabby, with his week-old stubble, torn and dirty t-shirt and muddy pants. Other than that, he seemed fine.

"You don't look too good, either," Paxton remarked, as though reading his thoughts. Then, he seemed to realize something, and said, "You made it out of Auburn." He was grinning.

Quentin didn't say anything. He stared straight ahead. Fettel's eyes twinkled happily. "Tell me… you saw her – how is Alma?"

Quentin lunged at his brother, dashing him against the wall. Winded, Fettel slid down the brick surface, but not before he pulled a knife strapped on his boot and took a swipe at Quentin. The edge of the blade grazed his left thigh. The F.E.A.R. operative jumped back, dealing Fettel a swift kick that sent the weapon spinning into the trash. Wary and having regained control of his anger, Quentin took a step back, surveying Fettel.

Paxton was still smiling, even though a thin trickle of blood ran down his chin. Quentin backed up against the opposite wall, feeling the edges of the wound while keeping his eyes on Paxton.

"Why are you looking at me like that?" Paxton asked. "Is something wrong with my face, or is it something else?"

"You killed all those people," Quentin spat, leaning against the wall.

"'I am a man more sinned against than sinning'," Paxton said slowly, weighing each syllable.

"That doesn't make it right."

Fettel ignored him, still sitting against the wall. "They taught me warfare," he murmured. He glanced up. "You see me as a monster, but we are the same, you and I. We were made of the same materials, and we were taught to kill without questioning our motives. You are a monster, a murderer, just as I am."

Quentin sighed, disgusted. He stared at his bloody hand. "It doesn't matter. It's over, Fettel." He waited while the words registered in his brother's mind.

"She's dead, isn't she?" Paxton's voice was choked and quiet as he spoke. Quentin wanted to kill him and leave his corpse to the rats.

"No." He paused before he continued, "No, it's not. It's starting again. Alma's back." He shivered as he said the word.

Paxton looked relieved. He picked himself up and took a step forward. His thin lips twitched into a smile. "She's gotten to you, hasn't she?" he asked, amused, in his characteristically slow and hoarse whisper. "You're finally seeing things the way they really are."

Quentin hated Paxton Fettel for the superior air that constantly suggested his knowledge of the current situation as well as the things to come. His upper lip twisted into a snarl of annoyance.

"Tell me how to stop her," he gritted.

"How could you want to kill your own mother?" Paxton demanded. "How could anyone want to kill his own mother?"

"You know I'll kill you," Quentin threatened, pushing away from the wall. He watched Paxton's eyes flicker to the nearby garbage bin.

There was a squeal at the open end of the alley, then a bright white light illuminated the two brothers. Quentin didn't want to take his eyes off Paxton, but his brother seemed determined not to look away.

"Quentin," Paxton said warningly over the purr of the engine nearby. The F.E.A.R. Point man felt the warm blood run down his leg. He was dimly aware of his own heartbeats, but they were drowned out by a sudden burst of shouts.

"Take them down!"

"What the hell? Where's the other one?"

"Peters! Peters! Get him!"

Quentin turned in time to see the glint of weaponry at the opening of the alley and ducked behind the dumpster. He heard a rapid burst of rat-tat-tats as well as a loud bang before the bullets ricocheted off the walls and the ground. Paxton Fettel was gone. Instinctively, Quentin felt along his belt for a weapon, although he already knew it wasn't there.

_Four men, SMGs and a shotgun._

He searched the ground for a weapon and his hand closed around a broken beer bottle neck, serrated edges along its break.

"Okay, I'm checking it out," one of the men said. "Watch my 6 o'clock."

The man held his shotgun beside his body and moved cautiously around the dumpster. Then, he staggered back into the man a couple of steps behind him, screaming while blood streamed from the bottle neck embedded in his right eye socket.

The man second in line fought to get free of his impediment while the third man tried to put Quentin in his sights. The fourth aimed and fired. Quentin twisted and the bullet grazed his face. He cursed inwardly. This never happened when he wore his helmet. He ducked behind the dumpster.

The wounded man lay screaming on the ground even as the three others moved in for the kill.

"Need a little help?" Paxton emerged out of the shadows behind the last man and twisted his head sharply, breaking the man's neck vertebrae with a sickening crack.

Quentin took advantage of the moment of confusion to run forward and take over the dead man's weapon. The man taking lead after the stabbing of the original point man whirled back to face Quentin in time to feel the muzzle of the shotgun jut into his stomach.

The spray of buckshot propelled him backward into the third man. The survivor pushed aside the bloodied, dislocated puppet of a corpse and backed away, unsuccessfully trying to aim at Quentin while ducking past Paxton.

"Son of a…" He turned to the car. "Mitch! Get your ass over here!" Quentin quickly ducked back behind his cover as the man blindly fired his SMG at his hiding spot. A radio crackled nearby, then another hoarse shout, "We need backup! Now! Get them over here quick!"

Paxton suddenly surged up behind him, undetected up until that moment. Apparently, Alma was still keeping an eye on her prodigal sons. With a deft movement, the ex-leader of the Perseus project's clones ended the man's life.

Quentin appeared at the end of the alleyway as the driver leaped out of the van. Fettel ran forward and tackled the man, but not before his pistol went off with a deafening bang. Quentin felt the blood before he realized he had been shot. His left leg suddenly went numb from the knee down and he staggered against the filthy brick wall. As he pressed a hand hard against the entry wound, the world seemed to go silent. He was often shot at but seldom hit.

Before he knew it, Paxton appeared by his side. His face was mottled with blood from the cheekbones down.

"Don't you regret losing my knife now? We have to go," Fettel said, moving closer to Quentin to give him support. "Can you walk?"

"Yeah," grunted Quentin, not wanting Paxton to have the upper hand in the situation. He shifted his weight, leaning on his younger sibling, and pointedly added, "You've got a lot to explain to me anyway."

-

"He ran off? I don't understand."

"Did he say anything to you or do something that might have suggested he would do something like this?"

"No, no, he didn't," Jin said, shaking her head.

Betters sighed. "Everything's going to hell. This is crazy. There's no telling what's going to happen next. We need to get you someplace safe."

"What about Quentin?" Jin squeaked, sitting forward in the clinic's uncomfortable reception room chair.

"Quentin?" Betters echoed. "Who the hell is that?"

"The point man," Jin said after a moment's hesitation.

Betters shook his head, disgusted. "He's going to have to fend for himself. If he got himself into deep shit, he's going to have to pull himself out of it alone."

-

She locked her door and made her way down the steps leading to her black Acura. She was apparently neither careful nor stealthy enough, as light flooded her neighbor's lawn, illuminating her face.

"What are you doing out here? It's 3 A.M."

She ignored her neighbor, instead walking up to her car and unlocking the trunk. The woman shuffled forward in her furry slippers and long coat and watched as she threw the shovel into the dimly illuminated compartment.

"… – is that blood?" the neighbor stammered, staring at the splotched bed sheets.

Genevieve Aristide slammed the trunk shut and stared meaningfully at her neighbor.

"That's none of your business."

-

That's all for now… Please don't forget to review!


	10. Ergo sum

Author's note: I'd like to thank everyone for your reviews. They're really encouraging! And player 0, I hope this meets your expectations. This isn't filler bullshit, I swear!

(DISCLAIMER: I don't own F.E.A.R. – Monolith does – but I do own this fanfic. And Patterson. But who'd steal _him?_)

**-**

**Interval 10 – Ergo sum**

"I can't tell you how excited I am of being part of this project, Dr. Wade. I really can't find the words…"

Wade ignored him as they walked; he smoothed his beard nervously as he punched in the combination and pressed his thumb against the slanted soft pad on the front of the locking mechanism.

"We're glad to have you too, Patterson," he said finally.

Bodies torn to fleshy giblets, muscles ripped from the bones. Mouths still open in gaping, open-mouthed cries of horror, silent to all but those who made them. One head, corkscrewed from the body, lying in the puddle of sticky, rusty-smelling blood next to a squeaky swivel chair. The control panel, cracked, displaying an array of flickering numbers, row upon row of gibberish.

"Damnit, I knew this would happen."

"Oh my God… What happened here?" A retch shook the technician.

Under his breath, "Green bastard." Wade leaned closer to touch one of the corpses leaning against the wall. The head fell away, neatly severed, trailing blood down the already splotched lab coat. He wiped his fingers on the front of his lab coat.

He raised a fist to his face, as though to clear the heavy smell of iron that hung in the air. The glass window was fogged and splattered in blood, but beyond it the heavy mass of the cryogenic stasis cell hung blatant.

"I should have supervised the defrosting myself," Wade muttered. Patterson ran to the phone and dialed for help.

-

"Paxton. Paxton."

He opened his eyes. They had taken him to a small room, whose closest wall, made of glass, looked into another – roughly the size of a large gym and brightly lit with large, fluorescent lamps hanging from the metal rigging near the ceiling. Practice targets on one side, training dummies on the other, a door on the far wall. Whitewashed walls.

The Man and Woman stood nearby. His name was Mister Patterson and hers was Miss Aristide, as they told him to call them, but their names really didn't matter to him – there were only two of them.

"Are you ready?"

The large door on the other end of the room opened, revealing a smaller, cloistered portion of the room. People. He recognized them at once. His mind latched onto theirs. They awoke. They looked at him.

He knew them all by name, names he'd given to them – Dennis, Andre, Mark, Walter, Harry, Jack. That was the first row.

"Okay, Paxton," the Woman said. "Tell them to come into the gym." The old routine.

"Move forward," the boy thought, focusing on the image of movement, action, letting the idea crystallize in his mind.

The men did as they were told, clinking forward in their jingling equipment. The Man was madly scribbling in his notebook.

"Good. Now, tell them to fire at the targets."

The Replica Soldiers scrambled into their respective positions, peppering the dummy targets with bullets. Beside Paxton Fettel, the Woman was nodding in silent approval. The pen leaped, drawing further observations across the page.

It was during the melee combat practice that the voice made itself heard again.

"Paxton."

He shut his eyes and listened. Beyond the glass, the Replica Soldiers paused in their movements and cocked their heads.

A brief flash behind his closed eyelids. He heard nothing, saw darkness, then a string of rising bubbles, stretching, colliding, splitting, reforming.

"Kill them. They deserve to die."

"They deserve to die," mimicked Paxton, eyes still closed.

"What's that?" muttered the Man.

"Paxton, what are you doing? Concentrate," demanded the Woman, impatient. "You have to tell them what to do."

The images, sensations hit him again. Blood red, pulsing. A searing pain in his temples. A loud, prolonged shriek. A syringe, filled with clear liquid. A bearded face. A cold, desolate landscape. Driving wind. Snow. Grayish, frozen fingers. The word, echoing in his mind, over and over, until it filled his head and threatened to burst his eardrums from the inside.

"Kill."

He felt his lips contract as he said the word. He opened his eyes.

Paxton Fettel was lying on the floor. Above him, the Woman was peering at his face. The Man was saying something into a telephone receiver nearby.

"…immediate assistance…"

"Paxton," the Woman said. "Are you alright? Can you hear me?"

The glass shattered, sending shivers raining in all directions. A shadow vaulted through the window, followed by another, and another.

"Patter – urk!" the Woman screamed before she was thrown towards the wall by a volley of bullets.

"Amy!"

Paxton's mind was a blank. He heard a distant whisper from Mark, "…eliminate all targets with extreme prejudice."

"Who are you?" Paxton wondered.

"Bravo Team reporting in," was the only reply he received. "What are your orders?"

The voice was silent once more, its motives unknown, its methods unquestioned.

-

"I should never have believed you, Harlan," the voice hissed and crackled from the receiver. "I should've known right from the start. Seventeen years ago…"

"It was an accident. None of us could have foreseen this. It was nothing more than a routine check-up."

"The amount of damage caused to the labs, not to mention the loss in personnel… and property. This is extremely disappointing."

"Don't worry, Senator, we're taking care of this as best we can. We won't let you down in the future."

"You better not," the man said. "I'll let this go, if only for old times' sake."

He hung up, muttered, "'Synchronicity event', my ass."

-

Patterson looked up from reading the get-well card from Jennifer for the thousandth time.

"What do you need, Dr. Wade?"

Wade looked surprised. He pushed up the glasses on his nose.

"Need? I don't need anything."

Patterson shrugged carefully, watching his cast all the while. "It's just in my experience that whenever you turn up in my office, you need something from me. I thought I gave you enough sperm to last for a while." He laughed; his eyes didn't smile.

Wade sat down on the corner of Patterson's desk. The technician's eyes followed him and frowned.

"You look tired."

"I'm only human. And I don't really need anything," Wade said. "I guess I just came down to see how you were doing."

"Came to sign my cast?" Patterson said, proffering his arm.

"No."

"Okay. Came to talk?"

"Maybe."

Patterson swiveled his chair. "Have you ever wondered whether what we're doing is right… I mean, morally?"

"It's for the greater good," Wade grunted.

"I'm not trying to piss you off on purpose, Dr. Wade. I'm just trying to keep my mind open. I doubt, therefore I am, you know?"

Wade looked tired. How much Patterson had changed, since he had been hired to help on this project. Once a bright, green technician, he had become a frustrating cynic. The use of his sperm for the in vitro fertilization of Alma hadn't helped matters, either.

"Well, then." Patterson leaned forward in his seat. "I've got a question for you. How does it feel to give your own daughter up to these tests? This mission of 'greater good'? I won't even start counting the number of other people you've sacrificed to this cause. Even I'm tired of this. But I never once saw you object to anything done to Alma. For all I know, you did most of the torturing. Your own daughter. I mean… really, how human are you?"

Wade stood up and punched him.

Patterson rubbed his face with his good hand. "That kind of proves my point. I suppose that, in a way, I'm to blame too, for all this. I never tried stopping you."

"You won't have to," Wade replied. "You're fired."

-

She sifted through the box of personal items shipped to their home after the death of Amy Aristide. Her nimble hands brought out a bobble-headed pen, the one she had given Amy for Christmas. There was a framed picture of the whole family; she used her left hand to wipe the dust away from the pewter frame.

A crinkled envelope lay at the bottom of the pile, labeled "Property of ATC. CLASSIFIED." She brought it out to examine under the warm afternoon sunlight and ran a finger under the flap to open it. She took out the papers contained within the envelope and looked at them carefully, soon puzzled by their contents.

"Armacham Technology Corporation? Project… Perseus? Origin? What's all that?" she wondered.

An envelope, left by accident in Amy Aristide's desk. Confidential information released into civilian hands.

Genevieve loved secret things. She ran upstairs to hide the envelope under her bed.

-

(Thanks for reading. Please don't forget to review.)


	11. Carpe diem

_I haven't touched F.E.A.R. since I started this story, so I hope you'll be indulgent. __This is 3 weeks overdue… We've got two chapters to go._

_-_

**Interval 11 – Carpe diem**

All he had ever seen of his brother were mere flashes and blurred visions, of a self-reliant bastard, who never respected his older brother or showed fear, even when he faced death. No, he did not face death; he leaped into it, embraced it. And yet, he was alive.

Both her sons had survived the unimaginable. Alma smiled, happily, but, like a harbinger of death, her broken and distorted features and the fetid stench that hung around her like a tangible mass did nothing to improve the overall gloominess of her presence.

Where few true memories of Paxton Fettel existed, there had been little or no contact with Alma Wade. But the rotting scent clung to him, the smell that still hung around the flattened area in Auburn's abandoned industrial district. In the Vault, or what remained of it. Nothing, not even the sweetest flowers in her hair, in his dreams, in his wildest fantasies for a normal life, nothing could erase that smell. It was like an infection, like an invading presence permeating his every pore.

The hands that held the assault rifle did not quiver.

He felt the crispness of his uniform, the weight of his boots, the comforting tightness of the helmet around his head.

"You imagine yourself a superhero, unbeatable and indestructible. But you are nothing but a little boy…" Her voice quivered and nearly died. "A little boy in a man's body. Oh, baby, what have they done to you?"

To make you find solace in these empty shells, and not in your own mother?

She took one step forward. The watery joints of her knees shook and knocked against each other like wind chimes. The intentions were clearly there; for a moment, she had seemed nearly welcoming.

Caught in the steps of a morbid dance, Quentin took a step back. His breaths were noisy and his ribs hurt as though he were out of breath, out of shape, a rabbit chased from his refuge, pursued across the desert.

The rotted carcass extended two painfully thin, bloody limbs, hands as dying branches. The discolored, cracked lips stirred. "Come, Quentin."

With me.

His eyes closed. He fitted his mouth around the word.

"No."

He repeated it, eyes screwed shut, as he shot Alma, again and again, every jab of recoil as a bullet in his own chest, until giblets of flesh tore from her bones and clattered away into the dark surrounding them.

-

There was a sleepy mumble in the dark and dampness of the hotwired car.

"Alice did taste the best. Hmm."

Quentin jerked awake. Paxton shook his head and stared, deadpan, at the road.

"I have been walking for you," he said at last, as Quentin ran a hand over his sweat-covered features and through his damp hair. He shifted his weight on the seat and searing pain shot through his entire body.

"My fucking leg…" Quentin fell back, his breath a hiss, his teeth clenched, his muscles taut against the pain.

"Neither swearing nor whining will ease the pain," Paxton muttered.

Quentin grunted, sweat beading on his brow. The knife wound was minor; however, he did not relish the idea of touching the entry wound, an irregular trail of pain drawn into flesh by the bullet. The raw skin around the injuries, slick with blood, seemed rubbery and alien.

The car skidded to a stop. He heard rustling. "Here." A wad of tissues was thrust into view. He pressed them against the bloody skin as hard as he could, winced and looked around. The structure in the backseat caught his eye. It was a little strap-on toddler seat. Empty. Quentin felt suddenly sick as the car lurched forward again.

"The woman. You killed her."

"Carpe diem, brother," Paxton said brightly, driving one-handed.

Quentin turned his eyes and mind away.

"Where are we going?" he muttered.

Paxton managed an insolent smirk. "I really miss Alma; don't you?"

The former F.E.A.R. Point Man leaned back in his seat; before he could ask himself what hilarity existed in the situation, a hiss of laughter escaped him and went largely unnoticed. The car turned onto a quiet, residential street and pulled to a stop in front of a large, comfortable-looking home, its silent windows dark, vacant. Two trash cans stood near the driveway and a small puddle of coolant betrayed the recent presence of a vehicle on the premises.

The tissues had been soaked through during the first few seconds and were now clogged heavily with blood. Quentin threw them aside and staggered out of the vehicle.

"What will you do?" asked Paxton, following him out to the sidewalk. Somehow Paxton had managed to trigger the trunk release, and the boot of the car gaped at the two brothers. "How do you plan to murder your mother?"

Quentin did not answer; he tore off a strip of his shirt and tied it clumsily around his left leg.

Paxton leaned on a nearby fence and sneered. "You should be grateful to be alive. Alma saved you. After the explosion…"

A blow caught Paxton and drove him to the ground in a heap. He was caught unawares by his brother's sudden anger, but the most surprised of the two was Quentin himself.

Paxton spat contemptuously. The fleck of blood hit the ground. "How far are you willing to go for your… people?"

Quentin noticed movement in the surrounding darkness beyond the glow of the streetlamps. The Replica Soldiers had been trained for stealth, but the constant hunger wearing down their defences and Quentin's finely attuned senses made them visible to him.

"You think you can control them?" Fettel hissed, a trickle of blood running from his mouth, slipping over the dried crusts of his victims. As Quentin turned, Paxton wiped the blood from his face and licked it off his knuckles, never taking his eyes off his brother. A nervous snigger escaped the second prototype as he stood. "They answer to me. I am their leader. Always have been, always will be. You'll never have them, even if you always were Alma's favourite."

The roundhouse kick caught Paxton on the chin. As he went down, his head grazed the top of the trash can, sending debris raining down on the driveway.

Quentin walked up to where Paxton lay, but his brother was ready. As hands fastened themselves to his shirt and hoisted him upright, Paxton's head collided with Quentin's and he stabbed at his brother's bullet wound with a piece of broken plastic forgotten on the ground. Quentin screamed in pain, but he found a stranglehold on Paxton and refused to let go.

He wrestled Paxton to the open trunk and slammed the cover down on his brother's head with as much force as he could muster. The second prototype dropped down to the sullied ground like a broken toy.

-

Jin stared up from her cold coffee as Betters entered the room. Since Quentin had suddenly dropped from the screen of the tracker, she had fought the exhaustion of pain and sleeplessness, hoping for the slim chance of Quentin's survival and throwing in a few prayers to the deities she was familiar with to strengthen his odds.

"The tracker just picked up his location."

"Where is he? Do you think he's alright?" Jin could hear the childish eagerness in her voice and wanted to laugh at herself.

"He's been on the move, as it turns out." Betters didn't say another word. He lay the small device down on the table in front of her and let the lit screen do the talking.

Jin stared down at the pulsing red dot and at the coordinates until realization registered on her face.

"The old Wade house."

-

He was in that cell, that all-too familiar cell. The harsh light glared down at him.

It was the sobbing that caught his attention. In the corner, under the bed, with its rock-hard mattress, a small figure lay huddled, in the only pool of shadow in the room. Blood spread like a spider over the cold tiles.

He looked about the room listlessly. He wanted to call for help, but there was no help to summon. The door was locked, and only darkness lay beyond the meshed window.

Overcome by curiosity and pity, he stepped closer – whether the goal was to save the boy or end his misery, he was not certain – and as he got closer and got a good look at the child's face, he realized that the boy was him.

-

He awoke in a room swimming in inky shadows, pangs of empty pain running through his leg. Feeling the floor under him and the empty space around him, he stood and swayed slightly while what blood he had left bypassed his wound and ran back to his brain. His head brushed a thin chain. As he tugged it, the room came into the dull focus of the single bulb hanging from the ceiling.

He was in someone's basement. Clutter lay in heaps in parts of the room, while boxes were stacked ceiling high in a corner, dust collected like frosting on everything within sight.

"Quentin."

He turned with a startled shout. Batted by his sudden movement, the light bulb swung and shook wildly, throwing moving shadows across the room. He panted, staring into the flickering darkness, the rush of adrenalin-pumped fear receding.

He put out his hand to stop the light bulb. The glass seared his fingers, and he drew his hand back to his body with a gasp of pain. The pain did not go away; it intensified, growing until he thought the palm of his hand was about to peel off and flake away.

It was then that a flicker of movement drew his eye. His leg, his hand, they were forgotten. His back straightened with a creak, then he was staring into Alma's eyes, or what eyes he could see through the tangled curtain of her hair.

"You are not alone anymore. We've got each other now." She moved closer. "Oh, what have they done to you, sweetheart?"

There were tears in her eyes. A surprising wind whipped her hair. Quentin braced himself for the stench he knew would come, but it did not. The rest of her face was revealed to him, the soft, pale face turned to him, the wafer-thin skin, the delicate features, the fine eyebrows and deep eyes. She seemed happy, and pained by her son's injuries. Quentin longed to move, to run away, but he was frozen.

He feared and hated Alma, but he had never known a mother's love and a new yearning had been growing in him since Auburn, this stew of emotions simmering toward an outcome he knew to be inevitable.

Her voice entered his ear and his mind, a sibilant hiss lowering his defenses. All the hate he harbored, the stillness his training enforced, it was all gone.

"Don't hold back…"

He closed his eyes, leaned forward and embraced darkness.

"No more of this. Mommy's here."

-

Tires grinding in the wake of a tight turn, Betters' car raced down the street and ground to a stop in front of the darkened house. Trash was strewn across the driveway; a small pool of dark liquid had been left under the open trunk of a poorly-parked car. Betters felt a chill creep up his spine as he stared up into the jagged face of the building. This was where it had all started. This was the home of a stereotypical "mad scientist", an epitome, in fact, whose genius had led an entire family, an entire company, an entire town to destruction.

"Jin, be careful," he said, laying a cautionary hand on Jin's shoulder as the young operative opened the door and prepared to lift herself out of the car. He hated the role he played, which relegated him to the position of observer, never to leap into the fray, to be a hero.

"You don't know who he is."

The young woman was silent. In the shadows of the car, he saw her look at his face for a precious few moments, bright eyes studying him, then she was gone.

-

"Read me another story, please? Please? Please?"

The gentle light on his eyelids and the insistent pleas, so close to his ear, woke him.

"Oh, stop looking at me like that. Your eyes are melting me like ice cream. Okay, just one more story. Just one."

He lay on the soft bed, amongst the cloud-like pillows. Swaddled in plushy flannel pajamas, Paxton was snuggled next to Alma. Quentin crawled forward on his elbows, moving up next to Alma, who tousled his hair playfully.

"Morning, sleepyhead." Alma turned to Paxton. "Another Shakespeare? But they're so long…" She suddenly held a book in one hand.

"Come on, Mommy, you promised!"

"Oh, alright," Alma conceded. "We've got all the time in the world."

"Quentin! Where are you?"

Fear and embarrassment tightened his features. They were back in the basement. The light flickered dangerously. Jin was somewhere in the house. Alma's eyes grew cold, and then an expression of helplessness came over her face.

"My little baby's growing up," she mouthed quietly, disappointed. "We don't need her, Quentin."

"Quentin?"

Dragging her leg, Jin hobbled down the unlit corridor. The light coming from the basement reached her. Gritting her teeth, she followed the glow blindly, ignoring the pain and the knowledge that whatever she was about to find was not going to be pleasant.

Jin missed the top step, rolling down the stairs in a clip-clatter of bruises and scrapes. She struggled to her feet, took a step forward, finally got a good look of the room and stopped, petrified. She watched in horror as Quentin reached out and gripped his mother in a tight embrace.

"Quentin!" Jin screamed.

Alma turned, faced Jin. Her hair hung like tangled ropes across her face; her skeletal body standing like gnarled, gaunt sticks in the harsh, fluorescent, bluish light; a grin spread, cracked, bleeding, like a cut, blood red, crimson on ashen lips, across her face, four decades of suffering, of planning, of waiting. Quentin's face was blank; he looked but did not see.

Shadows swarmed in the room and became wraiths, the members of Armacham Technology Corporation's formerly illustrious army.

Alma smiled, Alma smiled a sad smile, an ugly, ironic, cruel, vengeful smile.

"Too late."

-

_As you probably know by now, I absolutely love reviews. So thank you so very much for your __kind words. They are very encouraging and are the driving force behind this fan fiction; this chapter wouldn't be here without your help and support. And please, don't forget to review this chapter. It really helps._


	12. One breath

_One more chapter to go__! Now if you'll kindly excuse me, I've got people to meet, things to steal, a semester to fail…_

**Interval 12 – One breath**

The bubbles rose, inexorably rose. She felt them brush past her, but in her mind's eye, she also watched them soar upward, pitiful misshapen blobs, like the embryo she knew they would force into her body, a foreign object which she could not afford to love nor could possibly dispose of.

Patterson watched her from the monitors in the observation room of the Vault's cryogenic freezing unit, his hands wandering absently over the top of the cool panels. The other two technicians had left to prep a room for the imminent operation, but in a few moments, they would evacuate the liquid within the cell and all available hands would be required to help bring Alma to her destination.

"Her vitals are strong." He nearly started but caught himself as Wade moved into view, scrutinizing the displays and nodding his approval.

Harlan Wade had seemingly developed a nearly lizard-like silent manner during his extended years of working in sunless laboratories. Patterson had found his behavior startling at the beginning, but the man was clearly a genius, and passionately in love with his work and solitude, so the flaw was not crippling, nor paramount.

"I see our 'defrosting' is going forward as planned," remarked Wade, sounding pleased.

Patterson nodded quickly. Wade moved closer to the displays, staring at the dark form hovering in the spherical cell. Alma's hair wafted around her head like grass in the viscous and slightly milky liquid, intermittently revealing her closed eyelids, hollow cheeks and silent lips.

"We'll just have to make sure what happened last time does not happen again," Wade muttered through unmoving lips.

The technician shrugged inwardly, picking up a notebook forgotten on the control panel. He took out the pen tucked in the breast pocket of his lab coat. As he scratched notes into the paper, he began to feel a slight chill settle into the room. He glanced up, but the futility of the gesture became obvious as he remembered that the windows were sealed shut and the doors nearly always closed.

Then, a sudden glimmer of movement caught his eye. The pen hit the clean floor with a loud clatter.

"Dr. Wade?" Patterson called, his breath a hiss, but he could not take his eyes away from what he was seeing.

The tiny figure stood huddled in the corner of the room, far enough from the prying rays of the fluorescent ceiling lights to be shrouded in enveloping shadows. The bulbs seemed to flicker in her presence and a source-less electrical droning rose in the observation room, filling the sudden silence.

Forcefully twitching her neck into position, Alma cocked her head in a playful gesture; her efforts were wasted, for the very meaning of the movement had vanished for her long ago. Patterson backed away, his breathing uneven, holding the notebook between the agonizingly pale girl and himself, like a cross before Satan. He groped behind him with his free hand for the control panel, something, anything, to lean on, and called out again to Wade.

The girl opened her pale lips; a scream swelled from her bloodied vocal chords and engulfed the room in darkness. The glass screens of the CRT monitors swelled and cracked, flickering hieroglyphs, white noise, blood and madness dancing across the displays like a gruesome masquerade, before broken glass showered the floor. The lights pulsed frantically, outracing each other in tempo and frenzy; amber liquid crawled across the floor in a paroxysm of insanity.

The room seemed to pitch back and forth violently. Crouched on the floor, Patterson cringed, backing away from Alma and into Wade's bloodied and blackened skeleton, the bones clacking merrily together like the pieces of a broken wind chime.

Patterson's screams added to hers. He lifted his hands to his face, every nerve in his body singing in pain, as the exposed skin on his body sizzled like bacon and peeled away, flapping uselessly, to the floor, revealing darker, raw, glistening flesh underneath.

He looked up at the little girl through the tears of pain drawing fiery lines down his face. Alma was suddenly different. She was taller, and her hair was tucked back, leaving her face naked. The red dress was gone; she now wore a blue hospital gown, untouched by the flames licking away hungrily at the control panels and lapping at her ankles, like a well-trained dog. She was older, and her features were more mature, tinged with the tiniest taste of what she would look like as an adult. She looked perfectly human in all respects.

As she moved forward, stretching out an underdeveloped arm that trembled with exertion, Patterson could see her divergence. Alma lurched with every step, a jerking, unnatural movement that twisted her articulations into artistic, but broken and angular forms, as if her bones had been snapped.

"Help me."

"I'm the one who needs help," Patterson managed to protest, before his throat was suddenly and violently punctured and his voice was reduced to a pained wheeze. There he sat, cooking, a living t-bone on the grill.

Alma knelt down in front of him. He tried to back away, but he had hit a wall, and the structure around him cracked and bent and made him a prisoner. Wade was pushed into the wall and ground into granules of dust. Alma's breath was acrid smoke in his ear, her teeth sharp between her twisted lips. But her voice was beseeching.

"Daddy doesn't listen."

-

"Dan. Daniel!"

Patterson gave a start. He didn't look at Amy. Panting, he touched his face; he drew up his sleeves and stared down at his arms. His skin was all there; it was as though his sweat had put out the flames. There were no holes in the soft flesh of his neck. He drew a handful of lab coat to his face; there was not a single trace of smoke in the fabric. His breathing slowed to a canter and his pulse began to steady. He would have jumped and screamed out to the world in relief, but he had realized where he was.

"Daniel?" Amy's voice was insistent. "What's wrong?"

He spun, ignoring her. "Dr. Wade?"

"What?" The bespectacled scientist barely raised his eyes.

Patterson swallowed nervously. "Uh… do we have to do this again? I-I mean… we've already made one boy. Shouldn't that be… enough?"

Wade's knuckles, clutching the back of a swivel chair, went white. Angrily, Wade turned his back on the technician. He began to punch in the commands on the nearest keyboard.

Amy grabbed Patterson's arm. "What the hell is going on?"

Patterson looked away. Sweat ran down the sides of his face and fear clung to him like the memory of that little face that had burned itself into his mind. He couldn't bear to look at the cryogenic container, even as the last key was forced down with a strange finality, the machinery clanked into gear, plumes of water vapor and vaporizing liquid nitrogen were jettisoned into the air and the fluids drained out of Alma's holding cell.

-

The breath gasped into her. Alma's eyelids fluttered open, her eyelashes clinging uselessly to each other as though to save themselves from drowning. Her vision was blurry; for her, the first things to come into focus were the clouds that drifted inanely across the bright blue sky.

The sounds outside, once dulled by the pulse and weight of the water, were overwhelming. She felt the waves of reproach wash over her body like choking water as she lay on the wet concrete. She did not look at the onlookers, for each mouth was open to the same words, each face the same contortion of agony.

"Alma, silly girl," the woman said, her head appearing neatly across from the lifeguard's. "Mommy was worried sick about you!" Smiling, she rubbed and patted Alma's cheeks, but the little girl, even at this tender age, knew that her mother was thinking of the tirade she itched to deliver her daughter.

"Marina, come on," the man said, squeezing Mommy's shoulder. Alma saw sunlight reflect off the mirror surfaces of his spectacles before he turned away, impatiently surveying the hotel. Marina did not react; moving closer, he added, under his breath, "Think of our baby."

"Fine, Harlan, fine." Mommy's head withdrew and the woman waddled away, clinging to her husband, who rubbed her distended belly affectionately.

As the crowd dispersed, the lifeguard was uneasy. She had duties to return to, but something about this girl prompted her to remain. There was something unusual, something not-quite-right about this little girl; something in the way she still lay on the concrete, motionless, scarcely breathing, with her sodden, dirty crimson dress strewn about her, even when her parents were already out of sight and disappearing down the wooden stairs to the beach. It was as if she was savoring the moment, too pleased with her brush with death to leap back joyously into life.

"Are you okay, honey?" she asked. A sudden wind blew against her exposed back, and she shivered.

The pale purplish lips stirred, but no sound emerged. She looked dead. Her eyes were on the lifeguard, and yet, they were clouded and unfocused, as if she were elsewhere. What was wrong with this little girl? What was her problem? The teen suddenly felt a wave of guilt crash over her as a silver tear ran down Alma's face.

The sounds of splashing coming from the hotel pool seemed to dim. She looked up to spot the parents in the crowd, but they were definitely gone. And when she looked back down, so was the little girl.

-

The sky was cold on this August day; somehow even the southern warmth had deserted the bay. Harlan Wade's arm curled around Marina's shoulders. She felt and enjoyed the subtle protection, although it did not shelter the only part of her body that she believed actually needed warmth at this moment.

Harlan stared down at the footprints he generated, then briefly turned and glanced at the long trail leading back to the hotel. The beach was deserted; the only splashes within earshot were generated by the bathers in the heated pool. Few people wandered far enough to get more than a whiff of the Eastern coast's salty air.

"We need to have a talk about Alma."

"Alma? What about Alma?" Harlan, though he could not see his wife's face, could imagine clear as crystal her expression. He knew she was tired of the constant arguing their daughter had provoked during her brief years of existence; these were mostly over her strange behavior and the necessity of sending her to an institution for evaluation and possible treatment.

He mustered the few words he could grasp. "Honey, I'm sorry." He squeezed her arm, but she drew away. Harlan's chest heaved a sigh. "Damn it, Marina! Why do you have to be so goddamn childish?"

She whirled on him, dark eyes flashing. "Childish? Oh, you wouldn't know a thing about childish, Harlan! You keep saying you mean good for Alma but I know what you want! Ever since you took her to your workplace –"

"I've only wanted what's best for our daughter. Don't tell me you've done more for her than I have. You won't even look at her." Spittle landed on a rock and Harlan's finger pointed accusingly. Marina was hunched, facing away from him, and did not answer. "You're despicable."

"Despicable." A titter of laughter escaped his wife. "I may never have loved Alma the way I loved you, but I'll never send her to become a lab rat!" A sudden pain, like a knife jab to her swollen abdomen, caused her to stop with a gasped "Harlan."

"What!"

"I-I think –"

He turned; he paled. He ran to his wife's side, where she had collapsed in the cold, wet sand. Already, her blood, having mingled with the salty sea water, had stained the beach an eerie pink.

"Marina!"

He cradled her, too stunned to make a move. Her eyes were clouded over. There was something wrong about the way her body sagged in his hands, the way the strands of hair over her wax-like, pale face barely fluttered with her breaths.

"I… think you were right." Her lips trembled.

Harlan followed his wife's gaze. His eyes alighted on the small form a few feet away on the beach, where the water could leech at her ankles. A thin smile twisted Alma's lips as she stood looking down at her father and dying mother.

A gurgling sound came from Marina's vocal chords; a thin jet of blood squirted into the air, dotting his face. Harlan tore his eyes away from Alma's, stared into Marina's eyes and screamed in the direction of the seemingly derisive laughter coming from the swimming pool:

"Somebody, help! Marina!"

Marina Wade did not reply. She was not breathing.


	13. Synchronicity

_(Author's note: I intended to play F.E.A.R. again before finishing the story, but I got bored sitting through the installation.__ This was written over a period of a few months and finally finished yesterday evening.)_

**-**

**Interval 13 – Synchronicity**

"I've fallen into a goddamn soap opera," thought Jin. "Or a horror movie. Or both."

She clutched at a greenish support beam, looking on as the scene unfolded before her eyes. Like a movie, or a crushing dream of suffocation that just wouldn't end. The shadows rustled around her. She could hear the clicking of plastic and metal, the quiet hisses of cloth. A gasp caught in her as she heard heavy breathing behind her, but she waited in vain, for all eyes were focused on one single point in that dark basement.

The bluish pool of light seemed to crawl insidiously around the room, swinging from a precarious chain. Alma's hair dripped a sickly, yellow sap; her face, though gaunt, was somehow delicate and doll-like. Shadows wrapped themselves about her like a dark robe.

She looked into the darkness, straight at Jin. The dark eyes narrowed among the tangled hair. Then she turned, looked down, held out a hand to her son. A low, eerie hum rattled the fillings in Jin's teeth. Finally, she could stand it no longer.

"No! Quentin!"

Alma turned with a low snarl of anger, showing bloody whites of eyes. The grotesqueness showed from within her again, unmasked by her false façade. Jin looked away and into Quentin's eyes, trying to hold his gaze.

"Quentin! Alma – the little girl – they killed her! Harlan Wade… killed her. Him and the scientists from Armacham! She is not your mother! Your mother is dead! This woman, whatever she is, she's not –"

Jin cried out in pain and lurched forward suddenly. Blood poured from the spreading gash on her ankle, turning the trickle into a rivulet, as Alma seemed to tower, and hissed, "This is none of your business. Stay away!"

Smoke stung Jin's nostrils. She looked at her shoulders and began patting at herself furiously, scattering the gray smoke blackening the fabric of her clothes.

A spark leapt in the darkness. A flame shot up from a stack of old newspapers, projecting more light onto the walls. As a single body, the clones moved closer to the blaze.

Jin lay on the ground, wheezing. Her breaths came in short gasps, as she sucked in the smoke that threatened to kill them all.

And he stood there. He sensed it, the pain and the smoke and the blood. And Quentin's eyelids flickered.

He remembered.

He remembered his days at the firing range at headquarters, the way Jin held her gun with such poise and assurance, the way Jin laughed, the way she stared at him with one eyebrow cocked in mirth and the slight twitch of a smile on her lips. The way their hands touched, as he tried to help her pick up a discarded casing. And when her laughter shook the air like delicate bells. Oh, how he missed that.

"It's not right."

Turning, Alma let out a shriek of anger, a raw and ugly sound that, having barely frayed its way past her rotting lips, already saw two Replica soldiers fallen to the ground, crying out and gripping their hemorrhaging eye sockets.

The air turned frigid despite the fire. Tugging furiously on its chain, the light bulb flickered precariously and went out with a bang, sending glass fragments tinkling to the ground.

Smoke billowed about the basement. Boxes of memories lay, consumed by the hungry flames. A flap of paper landed next to Jin's face. She watched the Wade family portrait burn into ash. One of the Replica soldiers ran to the tiny basement windows, pushed an assault rifle to the glass, took a shot at the firemen and policemen milling about outside. The attack was met by shouts, a riposte. The rounds ripped through smoke like tiny silver fish.

Alma's head was lowered. Her eyes glowed like embers.

"My son."

Memories flooded his mind again. He saw Moody, his face ravaged, the flesh hanging from his skull like thick ribbons. His thoughts dragged him back to the hospital. He could not push the memory of the nurse from his mind. Her screams. And his dream, Jin's death, that would become his fault and his burden to bear because he had hesitated one too many times.

"I'm sorry, Alma."

He remembered the grassy meadow, the soft caress of grass, the smile on his mother's face.

"I only saw what I wanted to see. I cannot be your son."

"You ungrateful…" Alma's fury nearly reached the breaking point, but the tumult died down. Behind the black veil, her dark eyes glistened. "I saved you. From the explosion… I _saved_ you. I watched over you. Ever since you were a baby. I _love_ you."

Quentin wanted to give in, to a mother's love he had never known, to happiness, to a full life. He wanted to leave his existence behind and not have to care about anything or anyone, and just be cared for. His eyes began to close by themselves, and he found himself standing on unsteady legs.

But he also remembered the screams, the unearthly screams of Paxton's victims. The bodies of the SFOD-D men, each a human being, as their flesh was seared from their bones, as he watched powerlessly. Betters, Jankowski, Douglas and Jin. She had killed Jankowski. She would rip them apart, one by one, as he watched. The only friends he'd ever had. The only people who had ever come close to being family to him.

He shook his head.

"No. Never. It's wrong."

Disappointment painted itself upon Alma's face. Her skin began to peel like old paint, to flake away. Alive in a dead face, her eyes pleaded. "I loved you." Like beached seaweed, her hair fell away in clumps and crumbled into dust as it touched the ground. The flames bit voraciously, burning away Alma's memories, the old photos of her broken family. "Quentin… I love…"

With a last sigh of an unfinished word, she fell apart like ashes, and vanished. The fires, licking at the old photo albums, flickered and went out, leaving plumes of smoke in the air. The darkness fled.

-

In the penumbra and sudden silence, Jin edged to her feet and moved forward, dropping the torn piece of cloth she had held to her nose and mouth. Quentin stood alone in the middle of the basement, dimly silhouetted by the ambient light of the night.

She touched him, felt for his hand. It was cold and limp, completely unresponsive. She stared at his cracked lips, a thought lingering in her mind, but as she looked up into his eyes, she saw that they were dull and unfocused, as though a string had been severed. He looked at her, past her.

"It's over."

He blinked slowly, fell over, lay still. His eyes closed, and all was silent.

Jin stared for a long while, kneeling by his side. Her lips parted, and a faint whisper, like a ship departing the dock, deserted her lungs, at which point she stood, turned without a sound and limped out of the room.

-

"This is TMS Auburn News – your news always comes first, and here is your 15 minute update on the fire on Thornton street."

She reclined back in the armchair, clutching her glass of brandy.

"As of five minutes ago, the situation is now officially under control. The source of the blaze has not been identified, but the fire department have reassured residents, saying that the surrounding houses are no longer at risk.

"Now, for those of you who haven't been with us for the past few hours, and for our out-of-town friends, this past day has certainly been an eventful one. Officials have not yet commented on the possible connections between this morning's massacre at Auburn Memorial, the discovery of nearly a dozen bodies in the Auburn area and the situation tonight on Thornton Street, not to mention the apparent suicide of a law-enforcement officer of the Auburn police department."

"Ugh. Thank God this is over."

She swallowed somewhat nervously, looked over at her companion. "Yes."

"We'll have this sorted out. In time." He looked her dead in the eye. "You're out of a job now."

"It could have ended worse."

He drank. "True."

"How is your son? Your wife?"

"Oh, they're fine."

With the pleasantries seemingly over, uncomfortable silence settled into the room once more. Only the radio rambled on.

"Although the killings in Auburn seem over tonight, many of the residents are uneasy and claim that the worst is not over. Some claim to have spotted strange apparitions in the area tonight. None of these claims have been verified.

"I'm Jacob Turner, and this is TMS Auburn News. Goodnight."

He leaned over and switched stations. Calm, soothing music permeated the room. Aristide sat staring at her empty glass.

"It's really over now. Where will you go?"

"We'll see." She paused. "Goodnight, Senator." With that, she headed out the door.

It was snowing outside.

-

The snowflakes woke him. They alit on his face, his hair, his eyelashes, the nape of his neck. They danced on him.

He was alive.

He stood. In the poorly lit alleyway, all was silent. The snowflakes flickered all around him, dusting the ground a clean white. A single puddle of water had frozen, glistening like a rippled mirror.

The ice was as a broken iris, cracked and flooded with dark, cold water. He stepped closer, saw his own reflection. He gazed long and hard at his features, and then he knew, and a weak smile lit his tired face. It was over. Once, he had been Alma Wade's son, Armacham Technology Corp's guinea pig, the government's pawn. But now, he was more – he was also his own man. He was free.

His footsteps in the snow left deep imprints. The cold was refreshing; he watched his breath plume upon the air. Snowflakes hung under the lamp's solitary glow like fireflies, casting an eerie light upon the alleyway as he disappeared down the street.

-

End

-

_(Thank you for reading! __I know what you're thinking, this chapter was way too short, the events were way to choppy, but I can't find the "push" to edit this any longer; I just had to post it as is and get some… closure, so to speak. Perhaps this is the way things are meant to be. I have no idea if I'll continue writing F.E.A.R. fanfiction; it all depends on whether you guys think I'm good enough [wink-wink, nudge-nudge. All jokes aside, I haven't played anything beyond the original game, and thinking about the expansions or sequels or whatever just make me feel hopelessly alone. I don't know why. Anyhow, it's been great going on this journey with you guys, and thanks for all the reviews and encouraging words!)_

March 06 – December 07.


	14. FEAR: Attack

Here's a short story I wrote a few days after the completion of **Synchronicity**, cause I like the idea of something as inane as a sneeze causing trouble. I only finished it today and haven't had it edited, so any feedback at all would be greatly appreciated.

Also, a new F.E.A.R. fic is currently in the works (that means I'm way busy procrastinating), so keep your eyes peeled!

**-**

**F.E.A.R. – Attack**

Greg Logan sneezed. It wasn't a particularly loud sneeze and he had managed to muffle the brunt of it with his hands; nonetheless, after hearing the sound shatter the silence he was terrified, and so were the three other people holed up in the cramped office with him. Ann MacPherson's eyes went wide for a moment. Instantly, her hand flew up to her lips and, as she shushed him somewhat needlessly, a mean look came over her face, ready to assign blame.

Sounds drifted through the closed door: the dull clunks of doors opening and shutting, the heavy thuds of combat boots and the crunching of broken glass underfoot as the owners of the feet moved confidently through the occupied building, all accompanied by the unmistakable radio chatter of the intruders. As the men approached, Jenny Powell gave an involuntary whimper, huddling closer to her husband, who fingered his pistol with nervous anticipation. Ann carefully crawled to the door to switch off the lights and moved out of the way of the narrow glass panel next to it.

The strip of light from the corridor was eclipsed intermittently as shadows moved past their door.

"This is Charlie One. We're on the sixth floor."

"Alright; clear it and meet with Echo on the ground floor for extraction." The radio crackled and went silent as the first man answered, "Roger."

The paltry light was completely blotted out again. Greg edged until he could see through the thin gap between two stacks of file folders. He looked out at the door and, from his vantage point behind the desk, could see a masked face peering in. He heard the intruder's weapon graze the wall. Sweat beading copiously on his face, he ducked lower, but the head vanished as the radio crackled to life again.

"Charlie One, there's been a change in plans; proceed to ground floor immediately."

"Roger that."

Greg bit back a loud sigh of relief. The four survivors watched as the men moved on past their hiding place, before succumbing to the sheer exhaustion of fear and uncertainty.

An indeterminate amount of time later, they woke to silence. The lights in the corridor beyond the door were all out. Moreover, the heating in the building seemed to have been turned off, and the air was frigid in the office. Ann glanced at her watch, but the hands had stopped. Crawling painstakingly with one hand on the wall, she moved to the light switch again.

"It looks clear," she whispered, her voice hoarse and her mouth dry. A surprising cloud of vapor lifted from her numb lips as she spoke. "Should we make a run for it?"

As if on cue, a slight electrical hum made itself heard to the four survivors. The source-less buzzing made Ann's brow crease into a frown. To Greg, the whine seemed to grow louder and increase in pitch until it matched the resonance of his skull, and he cradled his head in pain. Through his half-shut eyes, he saw a shadow flicker across the far wall. A sibilant hiss of a laugh seemed to cut through the incessant noise.

"What the hell?"

A spark landed on the carpet as the lights flickered on overhead, pulsing as though in the throes of a power surge. The noise level in the room increased suddenly; Rick Powell screamed from close by. Greg looked up blindly, felt a few small droplets of spit hit his face, but Powell wasn't there. He followed the sound of the screaming, and found himself staring at a pair of flailing legs. The pistol landed on the floor two inches from Greg's hand.

The two women were screaming now, cowering together in the far corner, an unearthly dirge combined with the electrical crackles from the lights, the deafening humming and the screams intermingled with gurgles coming from Rick's suspended body.

Greg finally got a good look at Powell. His whole upper body had been lifted clear through the hole created by the removal of a ceiling panel. His normally immaculate white shirt was drenched in deep, dark blood, and his legs convulsed insanely, knocking against the wall. Greg felt sure he saw the dark glistening of intestines and the dull sheen of ribs, and he wanted to retch.

The smell was incredible. He stared at Powell but found himself unable to act. He touched his cheek almost timidly, staring at fingers coated in Rick's blood. Jolted from his inaction, he seized Powell's legs and tried to pull him back into the room, causing the agonized scream only to increase to an unbearable level and tone. Not to be defeated this easily, the force holding Powell up engaged in a macabre tug of war with Greg, who soon found himself drenched in warm dribbles of his coworker's blood.

There was a sudden, horrible rending sound. The person, creature, whatever, that was holding Rick up suddenly let go, and Greg crumpled to the floor with his friend lying on top of him.

"Oh my God! Oh my GOD!"

As soon as Jenny Powell screamed those words, Greg realized something was wrong. He stared into the bloodied stump that used to be Powell's upper torso. He screamed in horror. Somehow, while he screamed, he heard the gurgling as clear as day, like a fly buzzing in a silent room. It wasn't coming from Powell. It had never come from Powell.

He felt desperately for a weapon, and he found the gun.

In an instant, he undid the safety, and thrust the gun at the gaping hole.

He squeezed off two rounds blindly, and they went wide.

"Shit!" he screamed as he stared up at the glowing red eyes staring unblinkingly from the ceiling gap. "Shit! Shit!"

And then it was upon him.


End file.
